


right to the heart of you

by with_the_monsters



Series: too many war wounds and not enough wars [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abortion, Cousin Incest, Cousins, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Harry Potter Next Generation, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Next Generation, PLEASE HEED THE TAGS!, Pregnancy, References to eating disorder, Teen Pregnancy, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 75,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24372124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/with_the_monsters/pseuds/with_the_monsters
Summary: Lily doesn't need much of an excuse to outrage those around her. In fact, she positively revels in it. But this time, she might have found an outrageous thing she can't run away from.
Relationships: Lily Luna Potter/Louis Weasley
Series: too many war wounds and not enough wars [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572211
Comments: 83
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to be clear about this from the start: this will depict a sexual relationships between first cousins. If you don't like the idea of that, please _click away now_. I am not responsible if you choose to continue reading despite the clear warnings.
> 
> If you do choose to read, then thank you from the bottom of my heart - I adore Lily and writing this has been really important to me for a lot of reasons.
> 
> I've alluded to these two and their story in a few of my other next gen fics and when I got a request on Tumblr to write a proper fic about Lily and Louis and what really went down between them, it quickly spiralled into this monster. In all honesty, this is much more of an exploration of Lily and her decision-making and mental state than a shippy fic, but I hope you'll like it all the same. 
> 
> I will warn in advance of the chapters that contain the other trigger warnings tagged in the summary.
> 
>  _too many war wounds_ is just a catch-all for my wider next-gen universe, you don't need to read any other parts to understand what's happening here, and in fact they all take place later chronologically apart from the first one about Teddy, which I've benched until I have time to go back and update it to make sure it fits in with later decisions I've made about the kids.
> 
> Sorry this note is so long okay bye

Lily read a book once about rooves. She doesn’t remember anything else about it – not its name, not the story, not the protagonists or what they battled through. What Lily remembers are the rooftops, and the way the characters leapt among them like birds or cats or sprites, like they had a whole other kingdom that belonged only to them.

She’s thinking about that book again now, lying flat on the slate above the Great Hall, the moon staring thoughtfully down at her and the aching space of the hall stretched beneath her, separated by rafters and tiles. She feels like a god, up here. She feels untouchable.

The towers and gables soar around her, lights winking in a hundred windows. Somewhere in a lofty tower dormitory her brother Albus is sprawled, arguing with his best friend or flirting with a girl or making another bad choice quietly and determinedly, in that strange severe way of his. Far below, in the bowels of the castle, her friends are plotting in their Slytherin dorm, Yelena Nott watching over them all in contemplative silence.

It is every night at Hogwarts, in short. Lily wants to hate it, but the truth is that there’s a normalcy in it she can’t help craving. No matter how big and stormy everything gets, there’s always Hogwarts, striding on into the darkening future.

The wind picks up and she props herself up onto her elbows. Her hair drifts on the air, long strands of red wrapping around her neck and into her mouth. She picks them off her tongue one by one, then heaves a sigh and pushes forward with one booted foot. She goes sliding, hitting the crenellations at the bottom with a thump and moving fluidly onwards, picking her way up the side of the roof. At the end it’s just a short jump down onto a flat portion and then an easy climb up the side of the charms corridor and over the peak to a ledge that wraps all the way around this part of the castle.

She wonders how many other students have found their way up here over the years. She hopes not many. Like most of her secrets, she wants to keep this one to herself for as long as she can. It gives her a perspective on the castle she wouldn’t give up for anything, makes her feel like she rules it in a way she can’t express.

Five minutes later, she slips in through the window of an empty classroom and latches it quietly behind her. She picks up her cloak where she left it hidden in a corner and buries herself in it, warming her freezing hands in the soft lining.

At the door, she stops, checking the corridor before slipping out into it. From here she’s safe. Anybody she bumps into will assume she’s up near Gryffindor Tower visiting her brother or a cousin.

She picks at the cuffs of her sweater as she walks. She passes a couple of Gryffindors on their way back from somewhere – Duelling Club, by the singed edges of their skirts – and turns her nose up. They snigger as she walks past them, and Lily imagines hexing them into a broom closet and shutting the door, leaving them there for a week or two. A year ago she might have tried. Now she pulls out her phone instead.

“Uh—”

“Shit,” says Lily, and twists sideways just in time to avoid crashing into the person coming up the corridor towards her. “Jesus. Look where you’re going.”

“Good to see you too.” Her cousin Louis swings his broomstick off his shoulder and props it on the ground. His curls are sweaty, slicked to his forehead, and he pushes them aside with one idle hand. “Interesting convo, then?”

“Yeah, we’re trying to figure out who gave Carrie Winshaw and Maddie James gonorrhoea.”

“Oh, god. Gross.” Louis’ face twists and Lily wraps the victory up in a little bow and tucks it deep inside herself. Two days, and the rumour will have flooded the whole castle. No matter what Carrie and Maddie try to do, it’ll be a month at least before they can persuade enough people it’s not true, and half the castle will stay unconvinced forevermore.

Much better than a hex.

“Quidditch practice?” she enquires of Louis.

He sighs. “Nah, just toking my broom around because it makes me look so cool?”

“You’re too pretty to be that sarcastic,” she tells him, and he just grins.

“That doesn’t stop you.”

“You’re the bit Veela.”

“Not got your entourage with you today?” It is a subject change, and a blatant one, but Lily allows it. He’s always been weird about his looks, sort of cagey, like he’s worried that underneath it’s the only reason anybody likes him. Lily has always been weird about her dad, sort of cagey, because she’s worried that underneath it’s the only reason anybody likes her, so this is one of her favourite facets of Louis’ personality.

“They’re down in Slyth talking about gonorrhoea.”

“Fun conversation for a Thursday night.”

“You bet. How are your mum and dad? Have you talked to them about quitting yet?”

Louis’ eyes drop. He twists the handle of his broom, grinding the twigs into the ground, and Lily watches a muscle in his jaw pulse in and out. When she bumped into him in Hogsmeade six weeks ago and they got merrily drunk on the firewhiskey he kept buying, she’d thought he’d probably regret telling her how badly he wanted to drop out of Hogwarts and take the place he’s been offered with the Appleby Arrows. She’d let him keep telling her anyway, matched him glass for glass, until they lurched out of the pub and leaned into each other all the way back to the castle, whittling the want down to its bare bones.

She folds her arms. “I haven’t said anything, by the way. Not even to Al.” 

“I didn’t think you would.”

“I’m guessing that means you haven’t, then?”

He sucks a breath in through his nose and props himself back against the wall of the corridor, those broad keeper’s shoulders nudging the frame of a painting askew and setting its occupants tumbling. He and Lily both ignore the chuntering.

“I already know what they’ll say. It’s October, that means only eight months of my school career left, etcetera. It doesn’t matter that the spot might not wait for me. ‘Education is more important than anything’.” He sends his voice high and accented to mimic his mother, and Lily laughs. It’s more to make him feel better than actual amusement, but it works.

“I’ll do something outrageous, if you want,” she offers casually, poking at his toes with her own. “Then while they’re all busy being mad you can sneak off and you’ll be out of here and ensconced with the Arrows before they can do anything.”

“What, more outrageous than you’ve done already?” His eyebrows lift, but there’s a smile in his eyes. “How are you going to top getting suspended for being drunk during Care Of?”

She smirks. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

“I dread to think. You have one hell of a talent for getting into trouble.”

“Trouble is what my dad got into as a kid. People _like_ trouble. What I get into are a lot of extremely bad decisions.”

Louis laughs at that, so Lily does too, but she sort of wants to impress on him how serious she is. It’s scary, sometimes, how easy it is to make those bad choices. She can see the good ones floating past her, but it’s like even if she wanted to reach for them instead, she can’t seem to make herself. It’s a compulsion. Every time a teacher tells her how disappointed her father would be, every other student who gives her that look, like Harry Potter’s daughter should know better – they multiply and stack up and she feels them guiding her heart every time there’s a right and a wrong choice to be made. In another life, another universe, maybe her heart would guide her towards the good decisions.

“Will you come watch the game on Saturday?” Louis asks, pushing himself off the wall.

Lily shrugs. “Probably. It’s nice watching Hufflepuff get pummelled into the ground even if it’s not Slytherin doing it.”

“They’re doing better this year.”

She scoffs. “Sure.”

“You should come. It’d be nice to have somebody in the crowd cheering for me because I’m me, not just because I’m a good keeper.”

He is a good keeper, that’s the thing. Safest pair of hands the school’s seen in two hundred years, that’s the going opinion, and when Lily stops to think about it she’s so proud and so possessive it almost hurts. Her cousin. Maybe her favourite cousin in recent weeks, in fact, and he gets all these people wide-eyed and admiring just because of what he can do – not what his dad did or his mum did but because of _him_.

“Alright,” she says instead of telling him any of this, “I guess I’ll come.”

“Good. See you then, then.”

“See ya,” she says, and walks on just like that. There’s a slight scraping sound behind her as he lifts his broom back off the floor, and she twists round, carries on walking backwards.

“You could just leave that with everyone else’s kit, you know.”

He grins, all his pads held in one broad hand. “No way am I risking my baby in that shithole storeroom.”

“You loser,” she tells him, achingly fond, and laughs as he flips her the bird and turns to head for Gryffindor Tower.

When she slides into the fifth-year girls' dorm twenty minutes later, Ophelia Yaxley is doing something complicated with Sophie Selwyn – Winnie’s – long, golden hair and the other four are lounging around, scrolling idly on illicit phones or reading. Lily takes a running leap and launches herself onto Yelena’s bed.

“So,” she announces, and everybody looks up, “ideas please. I need to do something outrageous.”

She had meant it, when she made Louis the offer, but it wasn’t the whole truth. This need to explode has been simmering quietly beneath her skin for the last year, stoked by months of disappointed sighs from adults, another hundred thousand articles in gossip magazines, that rumour that went round a month ago that she was sleeping with her father’s godson, never mind that he has eyes for one Weasley cousin only, and it sure as hell isn’t Lily.

Clary Rosier flips a page in her magazine and shrugs, that jagged collarbone sliding beneath her skin. “You could overdose. Get rushed to hospital, rehab, etcetera.”

“Too obvious. Everybody expects me to do that anyway.” Lily pushes herself upright and sits cross-legged, wriggling into Yelena’s arms when her friend clambers down the bed to join her. “Other suggestions?”

“You could actually sleep with your godbrother.” Winnie winces as Ophelia pulls too hard on a curl, but her plummy voice doesn’t waver. “He’s incredibly attractive.”

“He’s also ridiculously in love with my cousin, and still thinks of me as being nine. Don’t know that that’s a goer.”

“Well what about Professor Wainwright?” That’s Ophelia, through a mouthful of hair grips, dark brows furrowed as she concentrates.

Lily’s attention pricks up. “What about him?”

“Well, everyone fancies him, but they’re all too chicken to do anything about it, apart from maybe Hannah Robbins, that Ravenclaw seventh year. But he was at school with one of my brothers, and Charles says Robbins isn’t his type. She’s too booby.”

Lily glances down at her own chest consideringly. “I’m not booby.”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds like just your sort of thing, Potter,” drawls Beth Zabini from her bed, “big storm of attention, everybody looking at you, and a man’s entire career utterly destroyed.”

“They wouldn’t _fire_ him,” she tries, but Clary’s head is already shaking.

“They would. They prosecuted the last one, do you remember? It was before we started, one of the charms teachers got caught with a seventh year. She was overage but he still did two years in prison.”

“Well, fuck,” says Lily, and Yelena squeezes her a little tighter into the hug in sympathy.

“Fuck it,” announces the other Sophie, Parkinson – Parks – from the floor, where she’s been frantically scribbling at some Transfiguration homework that was due two weeks ago, “just get pregnant. Doesn’t matter who the dad is, does it? Nobody in your family’s done that yet.”

“Hey,” says Lily, “that’s not a bad idea.”

“You can give it away afterwards,” agrees Clary, flipping another page in her magazine. Winnie, Clary’s first cousin and often of a similar mind, agrees.

“Give it away, or to be honest just get rid of it once everybody knows.”

“No, I’d definitely have it.” Lily is thinking fast. “Maximum outrage, obviously. Shit! That could really work. Even James and Al can’t manage something worse than that.”

Yelena says, “I don’t know that it’s such a good idea.”

Lily twists away. “What? Come on, it’s great. If I hurry up with it I’ll barely miss any school, too, might not even have to retake the year.”

“They’ll probably kick you out. Or at least suspend you.”

“Fingers crossed,” says Beth, and Lily ignores her.

“Yell, seriously, what’s wrong with it? It’s simple, right? Straightforward. It doesn’t involve anybody else—”

“Well,” interjects Parks with a bark of laughter, “I mean, you have been given the talk, right? It kind of has to involve somebody else.”

“Yeah, I mean, the starting part,” Lily agrees, “but the rest of it’s all me. If I can get pregnant this month or next, that’ll make it summer, right? Summer hols. I’ll still be sixteen so it’ll be a nightmare. I’ll give it away right off so I’m not going to have to, like, take care of it or anything. I might only miss a couple of weeks of school.”

“What if you end up wanting to keep it, though?” Ophelia’s eyes have gone wide. “I mean, it’s your baby. You might _love_ it.”

“I _loathe_ small children,” Lily points out.

“Yeah, but it would be _your_ small child.”

Lily’s eyes narrow. “Okay, show of hands. Who thinks this is a bad idea?”

Yelena’s hand goes up immediately, but Lily had already discounted her. She might be Lily’s best friend, but she’s also sensible in a way that sometimes makes Lily want to kill her. After a moment, Ophelia’s hand goes up too, her eyes brimming.

“I just don’t want you to have to give up your own baby!” she protests when everybody’s astonished stares land on her. Lily blinks. She can’t remember a single time when Ophelia has gone against the will of the group.

“Alright. Now everybody who thinks this is a sensational idea that will top anything my stupid brothers have ever managed to do.”

Three other hands go up. Lily adds her own to the mix and nods, well satisfied, pointedly ignoring Beth, who is in turn pointedly abstaining.

“Sorted. I’d better get on it.”

“Which guy will you do it with?” asks Winnie, brow furrowed. “You could make that a big deal too. Wainwright’s out, right?”

“Go full-on Lannister and pick a brother, Potter,” says Beth, and even Ophelia howls at her for that.

“What about Malfoy?” Clary’s voice is pensive.

“Orion? No thanks.”

“No, Scorpius, obviously. God, Orion, as if.”

Winnie makes a small noise of dismay and Lily blows her a kiss. “You’ll get over him, Win. Don’t worry.”

“I don’t want to get over him,” she mutters, and Ophelia plops a kiss on the top of her head to make it better. She’s been in love with Orion since they were four, and no matter what Lily and the others do, they can’t break her of the habit.

“I dunno about Scorpius,” says Lily, sliding off Yelena’s bed and pacing across to the closet. “He’s been weird with me since Easter hols.”

“Well, your brothers did beat the shit out of him,” points out Parks. Lily pulls out a red dress and sighs.

“I told them not to. I wanted to try blowing someone, you know? It wasn’t like he was going to say no. Guys never can.”

“Still can’t believe you did that.” Ophelia shudders daintily. “To put your mouth _there_. So gross.”

Lily grabs a green dress instead. “Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.”

“Yeah.” Yelena smiles, just slightly. “Like, it’s rank, don’t get us wrong. But once you’ve done it you can make them do anything. Anything at all.”

Parks gets to her feet and comes to join Lily in the closet. Over her shoulder, she enquires of Yelena, “Is that why Alveston’s getting you diamonds for Christmas?”

“He told us to keep that secret,” hisses Winnie, and Lily and Parks share a look from their safely hidden spot in the closet. They had, of course, told Yelena not five minutes after Alveston drew them aside to ask whether Yell would prefer necklace or earrings.

Sex is a funny thing. It’s nothing to Lily, nothing at all, just a new way to hurt herself or outrage people or feel wanted for an hour or two. For Yelena, it’s something else, some wearisome duty to be performed because her stupid pureblood boyfriend Alveston Flint will drop her in a heartbeat if she doesn’t put out, and Yell’s parents aren’t the sort who’ll just accept her getting dumped by the most eligible pureblood boy in school.

For Winnie and Ophelia, though, it’s still a grand enigma, something to be desperately wanted and envied but also terrified of. Clary doesn’t seem to care one way or the other, and Parks is still circling around the idea of it aggressively, trying to figure out what to do about it. Beth, Lily has no idea about, and couldn’t care about less.

Lily doesn’t feel right unless most of the things in her life are hurting her. It feels wrong, unstable, like if there’s too much good it’ll all be whipped away and leave her with less than nothing. Her friends are perfect, always half-dream and half-nightmare, and sex is the same thing. When it’s happening, when some guy’s hands are on her, when he’s inside her, his body above her and his need for her everywhere, overwhelming her, she feels like the most powerful creature on Earth. Afterwards, she feels like hell. The comedown after the high. Sometimes, she wants the misery more than she wants the ecstasy.

“Wes Bones?” suggests Parks, toeing off her boots so she can wiggle her feet into a pair of Beth’s wickedly high heels. “That’d be one fit baby.”

Lily is halfway out of her school uniform. She pauses thoughtfully, skirt unzipped, lacy white bra out, and has a think about that.

“Could work. I mean, not particularly outrageous, but at least he’s unlikely to get weird about keeping it.”

“True.” Parks steps up into the heels and reaches to tug Lily’s skirt off for her, holding the green dress up above her head for her to wiggle into.

“Well,” says Lily, head emerging from the neckline of the dress, “that settles it, then. Wes Bones for a first attempt. Gryff are doing a post-match party on Saturday, aren’t they?”

She pads back out into the dorm and does a twirl. The others, minus Beth, make appreciative noises. She doesn’t know who the dress belongs to. They share clothes the way they share space and secrets: carelessly, lovingly, like having a thing all to themselves is unthinkable. When they pack up their wardrobes at the end of the school year, it takes them days on end to remember what belongs to who.

Parks totters out of the closet behind her. “Won’t Wes go to the Hufflepuff party instead?”

“Nah,” says Yelena, and gets up to pull Lily’s hair back into a high, high ponytail. “Everyone knows what he’s like. A sad little defeat gathering isn’t really his scene.”

“We don’t know Puff’ll _lose_ ,” points out Winnie, and Lily cackles.

“With my cousin Keeping? Get real.”

“Hey,” says Beth, suddenly interested, “he’ll be at the party, right? Louis?”

Lily goes very still. “Probably. Why?”

“No reason,” murmurs Beth, but she gets up to start rifling through the closet too, and it takes Yelena yanking deliberately hard on Lily’s hair to take the edge off the anger she can already see building.

Lily blinks and settles. The rage has taken her by surprise. She’s never slow to anger, not Lily Potter, but the depth and breadth of this fury is unexpected. If it were one of her brothers Beth was suddenly interested in, it wouldn’t bother her at all. Al and James can handle themselves. But Louis—her cousin, the one person in this whole stupid school who she is certain likes her for _her_ and not her family—is not barbed the way her brothers are, does not have a callused heart ready to defend itself from the effects of a girl like Beth. Louis is primed to fall, always and forever teetering on the edge of love, that stupid gentle heart of his too eager to give itself away.

“Louis Weasley,” sighs Winnie dreamily, gazing into the middle-distance, “if only.”

Yelena lets Lily go and tweaks her ponytail, a silent reminder. Lily slides a glance sideways at her and their eyes meet. Yell looks at her, long and hard, and Lily offers up a quick, sly smile. Yell gets it. She always has, always will.

“Sorry, Win.” Lily goes over and takes a dark green ribbon from Ophelia, ties it neatly around the end of Winnie’s long and complex braid. “I’d put it in a good word, but his heart belongs to Quidditch and Quidditch alone.”

Beth makes a small noise from the closet, sort of smug, and it’s a lucky thing Lily’s wand is over the other side of the dorm because she doesn’t think she’d be able to stop herself from doing something reckless otherwise.

All their phones ding at once and Clary rolls over on her bed to palm hers off her bedside table.

“The boys are bored. Shall we go down to the common room?”

“Sure.” Lily turns around so Yell can unzip the dress for her. “Lemme just change.”

-x-

Half an hour later, snuggled up in her favourite dragon onesie, Lily’s drowsily watching Orion losing very badly at Gobstones to Yelena. He’s not taking it well. His cousin Morgana puttered over from a small cluster of sixth years earlier and spent a few minutes laughing viciously every time he made a move before returning to her friends in a ripple of white-gold hair, and that sort of set the tone for Orion’s evening.

Lily’s sharing her sofa with Euan, her feet in his lap, and trying to ignore the way he keeps brushing the tips of his fingers over the soles to make her squirm. That’s the problem with knowing somebody long enough to have taken baths with them as a kid; they always know the quickest way to your weaknesses.

“Quit it, Longbottom,” she murmurs at last, baring her teeth at him when he looks up. He just smirks and does it again, the firelight flickering over his hair. It’s a shame he turned out so handsome, really. Lily thinks it’s made him a much worse person than he might have been otherwise.

“Lily’s plotting,” announces Beth, apropos of nothing, and Lily is instantly alert.

“Zabini, you better shut your mouth, or I’ll—”

“Plotting what?” Ellery looks up nervously from the other sofa where he’s sprawled, brown curls askew. He’s cautious by nature, Ellery Urquhart, but he’s been involved with enough of Lily’s plots in the past to have a particular fear of them.

“Nothing,” Lily hisses, and even Yelena turns to Beth and says, “Stop it.”

“Sorry.” Beth doesn’t look it. “Thought maybe one of our lovely boys might want to volunteer.”

Euan shifts beneath Lily’s feet, expression wicked. “Go on, tell us.”

Lily glares at him. “No. You definitely wouldn’t want to be involved, anyway.”

“We might.” Orion’s eager for the excuse to give up the Gobstones, so he turns to Lily too. “Tell us. What’s the plot?”

She digs a toe into Euan’s ribs and presses there hard enough to make him double over.

“Not telling.”

“But—” tries Orion, and then Winnie—bless her heart—creates a spectacular distraction by squealing loud enough to turn heads on the other side of the common room.

“Keep it down,” shouts some irritable seventh year, so Parks copies the noise, but even louder.

“What, Win?” Ophelia scrambles up to join her, burrowing into the little space left in the armchair.

“Some of the Tutshill Tornadoes are coming to the game on Saturday! _Accio!_ just announced it!”

Clary’s eyes are instantly hungry. “Are they bringing Hawkley?”

Winnie, Ophelia and even Yelena sigh before they can help themselves.

“It doesn’t say,” Winnie tells them morosely, “only confirms the coach and the captain. But can you imagine? Xander Hawkley, here? Oh my god. Oh my _god_.”

“He was only at school here eight years ago,” grouses Euan, who hates not being the best-looking person in a room. “Not like he’s come from Mars or something. He’s just a Quidditch player, nothing that impressive.”

“Get over yourself, Longbottom.” Clary has her own phone out and is scrolling eagerly. “I call dibs.”

“No way!” Winnie and Ophelia howl and Lily can’t help laughing at them, suddenly so full of love for them, her daft friends, with the light from the fire and their phones catching on all their angles.

A little while later, she joins Euan in an empty classroom on the ground floor, sat one windowsill along from him with her feet propped up against the frame. He’s leaning out of his window, a cigarette dangling idly from one hand, staring pensively out into the dark grounds.

“My outrageous thing,” she says finally, here safely away from everybody else, “is that I’m going to get pregnant.”

He takes a long, slow drag of his cigarette and says nothing.

“It’s time to do something wild. I can feel it in the air.”

He slants a look at her, the red embers throwing most of his face into shadow.

“Well,” he says at last, one side of his mouth pulled up, “I’m happy to volunteer, if—”

Lily laughs, a bitten-off thing. “I’ll let you know if it comes to that.”

She does think about that, sometimes, about her and Euan that way, but she’s fairly confident it wouldn’t work. They’re too alike, too much barbed wire, both of them too wrapped up in themselves to build anything together. It’s better to leave it like this, an unspoken maybe hanging in the air between them. She likes the thrill of the possibility better than she’d like the reality.

“Who’re you going to pick, then?” He turns back to the gardens. “Please tell me not Orion.”

“Fuck, no. Not Ellery, either.”

“Well, no shit there. He’d probably get so nervous he’d cry, and then where would you be?”

“Agreed. No, we had a talk about it, and we’re thinking probably Wes Bones.”

Euan makes a face. Lily just laughs and lets her head fall back against the rough stone, silence descending as she smiles idly up at the stars.

“Think it’ll work?”

Euan breathes out a cloud of smoke. “Sure. Simple biology, isn’t it? Weasleys are a fertile bunch.”

“No, not getting pregnant. Outraging everybody.”

“Oh, for sure. Pretty sure it was not you your grandmother meant when she was banging on in the summer about having great-grandchildren.”

“Mm.” Lily brings her gaze down to him again, suddenly considering. “Hey, how are things with your dad? I mean, like, if you do want to get at him still, we could—I mean, it could be you.”

Euan grimaces and stubs his cigarette out on the stone sill. He flicks the butt out onto the grass outside and shakes another one free from its pack.

“That bad, huh?” Lily sits up and reaches for her hair, working the bobble out of her ponytail and pulling the length of it down over her shoulder.

He sighs. “He’s doing his best, I guess. I just wish he wasn’t so insufferable about it, you know? So fucking _understanding_. Like, he struggled at school, right? And he thinks that I’m the same, except it’s not the same at all. He just keeps going on about how it all turned around, he was stronger than he thought all along. And I’m like, I’m strong already? I don’t need this fucking pep talk every time I get a detention? God, I don’t know.”

Lily reaches over and lights his cigarette with a whispered charm, then prods the tip of her wand into his cheek.

“Don’t get down. War hero parents, man.”

“I know. And hey, look, thanks for the offer but—I don’t know. Let me know if it doesn’t work out with Bones, maybe?”

“Sure.” Lily eases back against the window frame and starts to plait her hair. “Parks has started a pool on how long it’ll take me.” 

“Feel like giving me an inside scoop? I need the galleons, Mum’s started this new fun thing of fining me when I get into trouble.”

Lily tilts her nose up to make him laugh. “Give me a month, tops.”

He chuckles. “Deal. I’ll put my money in later.”

“I get 10% if I’m right.”

“How about a drag instead?”

Lily laughs and reaches over to take the cigarette from him. “Square deal.”

Walking back to the Slytherin common room after they finish the cigarette, pressing themselves into alcoves any time they hear a prefect coming, Lily’s still turning the idea over in her head. She has always pictured children in her future in an abstracted kind of way, like one day she’ll settle down and find somebody to put up with her and they’ll raise children who’ll be easier than she is, children who don’t know and don’t care that their mother is often afraid of the inside of her own head. 

“Let me know,” says Euan in a low voice before they part to go up to their respective dorms. “Not just about the volunteering, I mean. Just if you need anything.”

Lily smiles up at him, inscrutable. “I will.”

“See you in the morning.”

“See you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a quidditch match, Louis seeks some advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading chapter one! Hope you like this new one. I'm going to be doing my best to post chapters Thursdays and Sundays until we get through them all.

Crammed into the Quidditch stands between Yelena and Ophelia on Saturday, Lily disgraces herself by screaming herself wild for Gryffindor.

As she sits down after yet another raucous yell for a stunning save by Louis, a fourth year behind her makes a muttered comment about house traitors. Lily turns around very slowly. By the time she makes eye contact with the boy, he’s gone nearly white. Lily doesn’t need to look to know all her friends have done exactly the same thing.

“I’m sorry,” she says, smiling with far too many teeth, “do we have a problem?”

“Yeah,” chips in Parks from the other side of Ophelia, hanging an arm over the back of the bench, head tilted, “do we?” She's wearing her long black waves drawn back into a series of dutch braids today, a black choker around her neck and her eyes viciously winged. She looks beautiful the way a wolf looks beautiful when it goes in for the kill.

The boy sinks down in his seat, shaking his head. Lily keeps looking for just a second longer, and then turns back to the game.

Gryffindor run out the easy winners, 210-10, and Hufflepuff’s sole goal comes only because a Hufflepuff beater makes a kamikaze run at Louis to pelt a bludger at his head even as the chasers roar closer, and even then Louis almost gets a hand to the Quaffle.

Lily joins the queue to file out of the stand bursting with pride, Yelena’s hand tight in her own. The others are still craning out over everybody’s heads to try to catch a glimpse into the headmistress’ box where the Tutshill team are supposedly sat.

They spill out onto the grass below together, laughing at Parks’ impression of the Hufflepuff seeker’s frantic last dive for the snitch. Lily can’t stop snorting, which would be more mortifying if it wasn’t so damned funny, and that just makes the others laugh harder, so they’re all leaning into each and howling by the time Lily hears her name being called above the furore.

Her friends careen to a halt as she detaches herself to find out who wants her.

“Hey,” says Louis, jogging up, still in his Quidditch kit, sweaty and ruddied from the game, “you got a sec?”

“We’ve always got a sec for you,” says Beth, shameless, and Ophelia explodes in a fit of nervous giggles. Louis gives them both a slightly uncomfortable look and then a polite smile, and his gaze comes straight back to Lily. He tilts his head and she takes pity on him at last.

“Yeah, ‘course. See you guys in a bit. If I come in and anybody’s put that green dress on, I’ll rip the fucking thing off you.”

“Promise,” says Yelena, still laughing, and winds an arm around Beth’s neck to drag her off. The others follow, and Lily watches them go for a moment before turning back to Louis, tilting her head back and squinting up at him, haloed by the low winter sun.

“So what’s up?”

“Can we—it’s,” he starts, and his eyes dart around, the crowds moving past them, people forging through to congratulate him on another epic victory, “can we go somewhere private?”

Lily nods and trails gamely after him as he turns and starts to push through the throngs heading back up to the castle. He keeps having to stop to have his hand shaken or his back pounded, and Lily’s teeth are starting to grind together by the time they escape the crowd and Louis makes a determined break for the greenhouses.

“Thank god,” he says as Lily pushes the door to Greenhouse Three shut behind her. He’s already stripping off his robe and pads, draping the lot over a wooden chair. Lily follows more slowly, fingers trailing along the damp wood beside her, weaving her way through the benches and stone tables overloaded with tropical plants. The heat in here is already slicking her hair to the nape of her neck.

“So,” she says, coming around a bench full of blood flowers, “what’s occurring?”

Louis throws himself onto the stone bench, breath heaving out of him.

“Tutshill were here.”

“We heard.” Lily slips her coat off and unwinds her scarf, letting her hair loose. “My friends were dying thinking Xander Hawkley might come.”

“He did. I just met him.”

“You don’t sound, like, over the moon about that.”

“No, it’s just—” He leans back against the steamy glass, expression hunted. “They offered me a place. The coach and the manager together, they both came. They said they’d give me double what the Arrows offered but I had to have the contracts signed by the new year. The league starts playing then and if I don’t sign now it could be two, three years before I get the chance again. They don’t get open spots for long, and when they do they go fast.”

“I see.”

His eyes close, lashes fanning out into the hollows below his eyes, and Lily resists the urge to reach out and sweep her thumbs over his eyelids, soothe away the lines pressing in between his brows. She’d do it to her friends in an instant, offer any tiny relief for the pain, but it occurs to her that she’s never touched Louis that way, never hugged him the way she hugs her brothers or even Teddy, like it doesn’t matter, like the affection is a given thing.

To be fair, prior to that drunken afternoon in Hogsmeade, she has never been close to Louis, never had a reason to want to show affection. That, more than anything, was why she was surprised to be the person he chose to confide all this in.

God, it’s roasting in the greenhouse. He would pick the tropical one. She takes her jumper off too, and if they’re in here much longer, she’s not above taking her boots and tights off too. The thermal tights had seemed such a good idea before the game, but now she’s regretting them intensely.

Louis, of course, is still just sitting there, Quidditch uniform loosened, throat bared, the flush of the game and the heat just making him look even more handsome. He belongs in that gear, she decides, the scarlet and gold filled out by the Quidditch-hardened muscles, his hair windswept and his hands still curled instinctively, like they know they ought to be around the handle of a broom.

“I think you should go.” The opinion comes out of her with more urgency than she means it to. His eyes flash open, blue as a summer sky.

“You—oh.”

“What?”

He clears his throat awkwardly, gaze cast upwards. “Um, like no offence and everything, but I can see your bra right through your shirt.”

“Oh.” Lily looks down and remembers too late that she put on the bright red bra this morning because all her others are in the wash and she had, of course, not reckoned on taking her sweater off anywhere other than the dorm.

Despite herself, she sneaks a peek at Louis. He’s still staring upwards, cheeks stained red, and the devil inside her can’t let the moment pass.

“Sorry. I’d put the sweater back on, but honestly, it’s so roasting.”

“Well,” he says, and gamely brings his gaze back down, “I guess, uh, it’s fine.”

“You’ve seen a bra before,” Lily points out. “What have you had, like, six girlfriends now?”

He frowns. “I feel like that makes me sound bad.”

“How?”

“Too many girlfriends.”

“At least they were actually girlfriends. And it’s not like you dumped them fast, anyway, didn’t most of them break up with you?”

“Jesus, cheers for the reminder.”

Lily laughs, and after a moment of pretending to glower, Louis laughs too.

“What can I say? I try telling girls Quidditch is always the first and last thing, and they always think they can change that.”

“Someone’ll accept it one day.” Lily picks up a pot of blood flower and twists it to examine the orangey blooms. “You just wait.”

“Sure. So, listen, you really think I should do it? Say yes to them?”

She puts the pot down. “Do you want to play for Tutshill?”

“Of course. They’ve won the league the last five years in a row.”

“Pretty sure any club you go to will start winning.”

He flushes again and Lily grins.

“Learn to take the compliment. You’re good at Quidditch. End of.”

He manages a smile, uncertain and nervous, and Lily feels her heart squeeze. God. She cannot let Beth do anything to that smile.

“It’s not just the winning,” he admits, staring down at his hands, “they’ve got a great academy. They’re really building something there, you know? They’re doing loads of community work, they’ve set up a team for people with disabilities… I really like that. No other team is doing anything at that level yet. I feel like it could really make a difference to people’s lives.”

“So go. Quit school.”

“I can’t.” His head falls back again, tawny curls pressing up against the misted glass. “You know what my parents would do.”

Lily slides forwards, dares at last to press a finger to the very tip of his nose. His eyes open and come to rest on hers, wide and desperate for an answer.

“I think you want to go,” she tells him, and taps just once when he starts to shake his head. “No, I do. I really think you do. Come on, you wouldn’t be asking me about it if you didn’t, would you? If you wanted the sensible answer, you’d talk to Rose or Vic. Hell, even Dom and Young Molly would tell you to stay in school. But you didn’t talk to any of them. You talked to me, which is a thing our family only do when they want the reckless or stupid answer.”

Louis reaches up and, very carefully, pulls her hand away from his face.

“Has it ever occurred to you,” he enquires quietly, “that maybe I’m asking for your opinion because I value it?”

Lily scoffs. Louis squeezes her hand.

“I’m serious. I think—d’you know, I think you’re the only person in this family who I trust to answer that question based on what you think would suit me best, rather than what they think everybody else would do? Like… I don’t know. Like you’re the one who gets it.”

She slides him a smile. “Thanks. I try.” She pulls her hand away, just a little too hard. There’s something about it, having him hold her like that. It unsettles her, throws her off-balance.

“What would you do?” He lets his hands fall back into his lap. “If you were me, if you had to do this—knowing my parents like you do—how would you handle it?”

Lily grins, feral and familiar. “I’d just do it. Say yes to Tutshill, sign the contracts, then keep it quiet for as long as I could until it was too late for anybody to do anything about.”

“You think that would work?”

“For me, yeah. But you’re nicer than me, it wouldn’t work for you. It would bother you to leave that kind of carnage behind you.”

He sighs. “You’re right. God, I envy you.”

“Me?” That stops Lily in her tracks. “What the hell could possibly make you envy me?”

“What couldn’t? The way you are, the way you see the world – it’s amazing. You can do anything and there’s nobody out there who can stop you. You decide you want something and that’s it, it’s yours. You make it look so simple.”

This knocks the breath out of Lily so efficiently she actually struggles for air for a second or two. When at last she finds her voice, it shakes.

“It’s not like that.”

“What?”

“It’s not like that all. Not even close.”

Louis frowns up at her, weariness pulling at the corners of his face, confusion bright in his eyes.

“Is it not?”

“No. Being me, it’s not simple at all. I know every fucking teenage girl in the world says that, but then, to be fair, being a teenage girl is hard enough to complicate anything. And me – with my dad, you know? You do know. I don’t know how you can think this is simple.”

He’s on his feet in an instant, reaching out, those Quidditch reflexes so fast Lily barely blinks before his big hands are on her shoulders, squeezing lightly.

“Tell me.”

She twists her shoulders away. “Tell you what?”

“This. All of it. I thought – the other week, in Hogsmeade, when we were talking about the Arrows… I mean, I know I wouldn’t shut up about my problems, but I knew there was something, with you. There always has been.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t mean it in a bad way.” He reaches for her again and then stops himself, frown lines deepening between his brows. “Sorry. This is coming out wrong. Look, you listened to me drunkenly talk myself in circles for four hours and didn’t even flinch when I bared my stupid soul to you. So, please, I’d like to return the favour. Tell me what it is. Tell me what’s complicated.”

He sits himself back down on the bench, long legs stretched out, expression open and expectant.

Lily scoffs at him, but she doesn’t walk away. Anybody else, she would. Abruptly, though, she doesn’t want to. She wants to offer him this deep and dirty part of herself and have him make it okay again.

“God,” she says, and collapses onto the bench next to him. “It’s a miserable self-pity party, fair warning.”

He shifts beside her. “Tell me anyway.”

She says it fast, eyes fixed on her hands. “Rose told me this summer, she wouldn’t tell me how she knew but she said this year was going to suck for me. Something terrible was going to happen, and it was going to make me incredibly sad. All I could do was laugh, right? Like, being sad, that’s just being me. It’s nothing special at all.”

“You don’t seem sad.”

“I’ve managed to persuade myself that mostly I’m just angry.” She picks at the hem of her shirt, yanking on a loose thread. “Which I am too, I guess. This world’s a bit of a shitshow. But any time I stop, any time I’m not running at something at a million miles an hour, it’s like there’s this big black pit inside my head that swallows the rest of me up. And it’s so scary that nothing else is capable of scaring me besides that. That’s why I just go for everything. Better to be causing trouble than just tearing my own hair out, right?”

“Is that why you do it all?” Louis’ tone is so soft in the thick heat of the greenhouse.

“Mostly. I mean, it’s fun too, don’t get me wrong. And with Dad being Dad – well, it’s not like I could ever hope to measure up to people’s expectations for me, so I might as well go in the opposite direction instead. It’s working for James.”

Silence stretches out, longer and longer. When Lily at last risks a glance sideways at Louis, he’s frowning at his hands, thoughts chasing each other across his face. Abruptly, his gaze flickers to her and catches her looking, and he flushes just a little.

“Sorry. I had no idea it was like that.”

“Mm.”

The mood is already too heavy for Lily. She has spilled too many secrets. Before Hogsmeade, she’d barely spoken to Louis, for all that they’re family. At the Burrow gatherings or birthdays or Christmases he’s always separate, playing endless Quidditch with whoever he can scrounge up for a game or chatting idly to this uncle or that one, reluctant to join in with the more raucous fun Lily likes to cook up. Now she feels like she knows him better than almost anybody else in the family, her brothers excepted, and like maybe she’s shown him just a little too much of the maelstrom she very much prefers to keep tucked away and private.

“Sorry, I’m being dumb. I shouldn’t have said anything. Look,” she continues, carrying on louder when he looks like he’ll interrupt, “listen, I’ve got my outrageous thing planned.”

He looks quizzical.

“I said the other night, remember? An outrageous thing so you can run away and join the Quidditch circus. It’s all planned out. I’m making the first move of the game tonight.”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “Uh oh. Do I want to know what?”

“I doubt it. Are you going to the Gryff party?”

“Someone will drag me along.” He levers himself to his feet. “Are you?”

“’Course. You Gryffindors are fucking annoying, but you throw a good party.”

“Thank you,” he says, “I think. Look, though – you really think I should do it? Just go for it?”

She reaches out and grips his sleeve. Beneath her fingers, his pulse is unsteady, his skin warm enough to feel through the thin fabric of his undershirt.

“It’s your life. You only get one shot at this.”

He doesn’t say anything. The way he looks at her, though, it’s right on the edge of desperation.

“You’ll be alright.” She drops his sleeve and steps back, shoots him a challenging grin. “You’re Louis fucking Weasley, right?”

“Louis fucking Weasley,” he repeats, and he almost smiles. “Thank you.”

“Any time. Now, shall we get out of here before we literally roast to death?”

He does laugh, then, head thrown back, Veela-perfect white teeth showing. Lily laughs too, she can’t help it. They pile their layers back on and shoulder their way back out into the cold. Even as Lily knows she should be turning her attention to her plan for tonight, she’s instead circling around and around Louis’ choice, and wishing there was a way she could make it easier for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the Gryffindor party, Lily gets some bad news and makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading the first two chapters! This is a much longer update, I hope you enjoy. Here's where things get hot and heavy, so please do go carefully if that bothers you.
> 
> I've made [a graphic on the next gen tumblr I share with some friends](https://nextgensquad.tumblr.com/post/619551847415480321/hogwarts-yearbook-class-of-2026-slytherin) if you want to meet Lily and her friends in a little more detail! 
> 
> Trigger warnings for: references to underage sex, references to anorexia, discussion of pregnancy, mention of abortion, underage drinking, drug use, cousin incest, vomiting. (They're at a party, sorry!)

Clary is incandescent. Every time Lily looks at her it’s like she’s glowing. She’s maddeningly closed-mouthed about why all evening as they get ready for the Gryffindor party, but finally Lily gets a third drink in her and she unbuttons.

“I did it,” she whispers, leaning in close while she and Lily are in the bathroom putting the finishing touches on their make-up. 

Lily feigns disinterest. “Did what, Riri?”

“Hawkley.” She swipes a nude colour onto her lips and pouts at herself in the mirror. “After the game. A broom closet. Janky.”

“You,” says Lily, and puts down her mascara. “Clarissa Rosier. Tell me you did not lose your virginity to a Quidditch star in a _broom closet_.”

Clary catches her gaze in the mirror, her eyes so green, and then bursts out laughing.

“I told you fuckers,” she crows, and turns to Lily, suddenly wild, taking her by the arms, “didn’t I tell you I’d do it!”

“You absolute fucking asshole,” says Lily admiringly, and grabs her right back, “you jammy little bastard!”

They stumble out of the bathroom howling with laughter, holding each other up, Clary’s thin, thin arm wound around Lily’s neck.

“It happened!” She stands up straight and throws her other arm out wide, ribs expanding. “I am now a woman, and Alexander Hawkley has a big dick as well as big dick energy, confirmed.”

“You _fucker_ ,” screeches Parks, and launches herself over to hug her. “I’m so proud of you!”

“In a broom closet, it was.” Lily surrenders Clary, still laughing. “That’s our girl.”

“Jesus Christ,” says Ophelia breathily, eyes wide. But she’s smiling too, caught up in Clary’s manic delight, and even prim Winnie is giggling, her golden hair tonged into princess-like waves. 

The hysteria carries them through until they head up for the party, buoyed up by too much vodka and Clary’s inability to keep a straight face. Yelena keeps trying to be disapproving but failing. The Gryffindor portrait looks at them in despair when they arrive in front of her, but Lily’s got the password from her brother so she has to let them through.

Lily hauls herself through first, of course, turning to help Yelena and Beth next. The seven of them arrive to find the party in full uproar, a heavy bassline reverberating through the crowd and bodies writhing against each other. 

“They do throw a good party.” Yelena looks disappointed by the fact, but Beth just chuckles and drags her off to find a drink. Lily watches them go, eyes narrowed.

“Leave it,” says Parks in her ear, and grabs her hand. “Come on, let’s dance.”

They forge their way onto the hastily-cleared dance floor. People make way, the way they always seem to, clearing a space for them. Lily puts an arm around Clary, the jut of her hips sharp beneath her silver dress, and grins into her hair as they move together, hyper-aware of the hot gazes of the boys around them. 

Lily lets the music take her. The alcohol is still buzzing through her, humming pleasantly. Her hair is up, plaited back tightly, and she’s bared about as much leg as she can without just wearing knickers. She loves the way this feels. The power of it. The wanting.

She dances until Parks grabs her and yanks her to one side, eager for another drink. The moment they step off the dance floor the music is magically muted, just a low-level thrum to keep the background alive.

Ophelia follows them but they leave Winnie and Clary dancing together in that easy way that shows they’ve known each other their whole lives, identical noses dusted with highlighter and their blonde heads shining in the multi-coloured lights.

With a drink in hand, Lily tucks herself against a window and wriggles her shoulders. The cold glass is delicious against her heated back. Parks abandons her immediately to flirt with Hannah Finch-Fletchley and Lily watches with lazy propriety, so proud she could burst of her beautiful funny friends who draw eyes wherever they go.

“God,” says a voice in her ear, “how on Earth did you manage to forget trousers?”

Lily doesn’t look round.

“I’m wearing a dress, dipshit.”

“I hate to break it to you,” announces her brother Albus, leaning back against the window next to her, “but that’s definitely just a top.”

“Scorpius not with you?” she inquires lightly, and Albus narrows his eyes at her. 

“Don’t be a bitch. Where’s the rest of your little posse?”

“Here and there.” She waves a hand at the dance floor. “You remember Fee, she’s here.”

Ophelia makes a sad little squawking noise from Lily’s other side, and Lily just grins, slow and steady. Ophelia’s nervous around most boys, and Albus has a gift for making even confident girls second-guess themselves. Lily knows she should hate it about him, but she’s only ever envied it.

“Hey,” says Albus without looking at her, and pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Heard from James recently?”

Lily lifts a shoulder. “Not since that gif he put in the family chat last week.”

“Any clue what he’s up to?”

“Not one. Why?”

“Nothing,” says Albus, and he’s so blatantly lying that Lily sheds her deliberate languor and turns on him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he repeats, so Lily reaches out and pinches his arm as hard as she can.

“You fucker,” he hisses, bent over, but Lily just asks again, ice-cold, “What’s going on?”

“You’re an animal,” he says, but then admits, “Teddy heard he’s got someone.”

“That’s hardly new.”

“No, like, an actual someone. Like, a steady someone. A proper someone.”

Lily’s eyes narrow. “Like… he’s in love?”

“God, I hope not. James in love. Disgusting. But, yeah, someone he’s pretty serious about, according to Teddy.”

“What the fuck does Teddy know,” she says with an eye roll. “He has no clue how _he_ feels about people.”

“He’ll get there.” Albus peers down at his phone. “Speaking of, he wants to know if you’re up for coming to Hogsmeade tomorrow? I’m meeting him for a drink.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s our godbrother and I love him.”

“No, really, why?”

He sighs. “He says to gossip about James, but I suspect it’s more to do with me making up with Scorpius.”

Lily winces. “Right. You definitely don’t want me there, then.”

“True.” Albus unlocks his phone and shoots off a hasty reply. “Still mad at you for that, by the way.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got my sights set elsewhere these days.”

“I would be less pissed off about the whole thing if I felt like you’d ever had your sights on Scorpius in the first place, you know.”

Lily plonks her empty drink down on a table and sighs. “Seriously, Al, get over it. It was nothing.”

“You’re my sister, and he--”

“Took up an offer. If it had been anybody else, you’d have been cheering him on.”

“But it was _you_.”

“Yeah. So? I wasn’t, like, disrespected or used or anything. I wanted to do it. So, really, you being mad about it is really lame. Like I belong to you or something and only you get to decide who I do stuff with.”

That briefly flummoxes Albus. His jaw works for a second, until he says miserably, “That’s not what this is about. For fuck’s sake. Arguing with you is like walking into a mirror maze.”

The metaphor impresses Lily, and she’s genuinely interested when she asks, “Yeah? Care to elaborate?”

“Like I end up with all my own words twisted and sent back at me, and then I walk into them and break my nose.”

“Intriguing. I’m going to remember that one.”

“Don’t. Fuck me. I need another drink.” With that he’s off, forging his way into the crowd, the depth of his disinterest enough to send people sliding out of his way. 

“Get me one?” Lily calls after him, and he just lifts a finger back in her direction.

“Your brother,” says Ophelia very quietly, “scares me absolutely shitless.”

Lily is forced to pretend she hadn’t forgotten she was there.

“He’s a loser,” she says with great confidence. “Come on, let’s get a drink.”

-x-

An hour later, Lily is back on the dance floor, drink clutched tight, with Wes Bones’ hands on her waist. The beat is pulsing through her, the heat glorious, her hair sweated to the nape of her neck. She wants to live like this always, a faceless body behind her, music driving through her, alcohol making her feel young and strong and beautiful.

Wes’ hands shift and she presses back, devilish. Her shoulders hit strong chest, her buttocks press against his groin, and she allows herself one small smile as his grip tightens. His mouth drops to her shoulder and presses a kiss there, open-mouthed and sloppy, and she grinds back lazily against him. 

He makes this quiet, smug noise against her skin. She knows she has him then. It’s too easy, sometimes, winning somebody. All she has to do is let them think they’re taking something, doing something to her, and she can have whatever she wants.

She closes her eyes and forces her vodka-addled thoughts to condense and focus. She needs to get him back to his dorm, somehow, get behind those curtains and let him do what he wants. She’ll weave the lie in seamlessly – _don’t worry, I’m on birth control_ – and then it will happen. As easy as that.

Her eyes slide open and she lifts a hand to wind in Wes’ hair. As her fingers press against his scalp, something catches her attention on the edge of the dance floor. She blinks and it swims into view: Louis, standing there in silence, buffeted on both sides by party-goers, his knuckles white around a drink and his gaze fixed on her. 

She couldn’t say why she does it, but she drops her hand like it’s been hexed.

“Need another drink,” she shouts to Wes over the din of the music, and slides away before he can yell any of those familiar words after her: _tease, slut, bitch_. The insults are swallowed up by the crowd, and in short order Lily is stepping into the relative peace outside the dance floor, trying to figure out why the hell it suddenly feels like she was doing something to be ashamed of.

Louis is gone when she reaches the place where he’d been standing, but he’s tall enough that she quickly spots his broad shoulders forcing his way through a chattering group by the stairs to the boys’ dorms. 

She dumps her cup and hurries after him. She hears her name called over the hubbub and turns just to blow a kiss at Yelena, waving a hand to promise she’s fine. 

He’s almost all the way up the stairs by the time she catches up. She’s huffing and puffing, seriously regretting her disinclination to exercise _ever_ , and he’s clearly heard her swearing to herself because he’s stopped near the top. 

“Sorry,” he says to a point somewhere beside her left ear. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

She folds her arms over her chest, acutely conscious of the diamond gaps of bare midriff and long expanse of bare legs. “You didn’t. You’re not. What’s going on?”

“I just – I was going to come tell you, I thought you’d want to know. Vic rang earlier. Big news – she’s pregnant.”

Lily has the curious sensation of the staircase falling out from under her and the sky pressing down and crushing her flat in the space between one second and the next.

“Oh,” she hears herself say from a million miles away, “how wonderful. Who’s the father?”

“Well, that’s the slightly un-wonderful part,” he admits, rubbing a hand over his face. “She hasn’t told Mum and Dad, but they’ve only been seeing each other a couple of months. Her and the guy, I mean. She’ll have to tell them eventually, but they’re not going to like it.”

“Yes,” says Lily numbly. “Sorry. I have to sit down.”

And then she does, graceless, fumbling her way down onto the cold stone of the Gryffindor steps and pressing her knees together very hard. Louis follows her down, frowning.

“Are you alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” She waves him off. “Sorry. Too much to drink, probably.”

He hesitates, and then he presses a hand into the stone beside her. Lily thinks he maybe wanted to put it on her shoulder, on the back of her neck, maybe, and wonders what it says that he didn’t dare.

“Come on, my dorm’s just up there. I’ll get you some water.”

He does touch her now, two strong hands under her elbows, practically lifting her to her feet. Lily’s legs feel like jelly. She reaches for the rope bannister and holds on tight, forcing herself to concentrate on where she’s putting her feet in her heels. Louis leads her round one more spiral and then pushes a wooden door open, tilting his head to invite her in.

It’s blessedly empty. There are six beds altogether and it’s different from the Slytherin dorms. The windows look out onto sky rather than into the lake, of course, but it’s more than that. Their dorm was all severe black stone and elegant lines before they went at it with determination, Clary’s mother’s interior designer’s help and plenty of transfiguration spells. Louis’ dorm is unbelievably cosy, the four-poster beds draped in red and squishy armchairs taking up half the available space.

Lily pauses in the doorway.

“Aren’t there more of you than this?”

Louis grabs a glass off his nightstand and heads towards a small door, presumably the bathroom.

“Yeah. There are four dorms for Seventh Year guys. Three for the girls, but they’ve got eight beds in each.”

“Oh.” Lily totters in further and perches carefully on the edge of an armchair. “Who’s in yours?”

“Not Al and Scorpius, thank god,” he says, reappearing with the glass and pressing it on her. She takes it gratefully and throws the whole thing back in one go. Water trickles out from the corners of her mouth and she wipes it away gracelessly.

Louis watches the whole thing and then laughs. He takes the glass, disappears again, and refills it one more time.

Feeling a little like her insides are sloshing about, Lily drinks some more and then sets it down on a table beside her and bends to start unlacing her shoes as he throws himself down onto his bed opposite.

“Go on,” she prompts as she picks at the knot with clumsy fingers, “who else?”

“I don’t know if you’ll know them. Deltus Pucey, Quentin Howarth, Evgeny Solokov—”

“I know Evgeny,” Lily interrupts, and finally gets the knot undone, “I… met him at a party earlier this year.”

When she dares glance up, Louis’ ears have gone very red. “He said.”

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to make it awkward for you.”

“It’s, uh – the way they talk about you sometimes, it’s hard.”

Lily lifts a shoulder. “They’d talk about me whatever I did.”

“It doesn’t seem fair,” Louis ventures quietly, “that they all talk about you that way but they never say it about Albus, and he – well. He’s been with a lot more girls than you have guys.”

“Ah, but he’s a guy to start with, and the world is a terrible place.” She toes her shoe off at last, the feeling blissful, and wriggles her socked foot before bending to sort the other one out. It comes off quicker, and she rotates both ankles in delight. Louis is still watching her uncertainly, posture slumped, hands picking at each other in his lap.

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“It used to. But then I realised that people would sell stories about me no matter what I did, so I thought it was time I learnt to control the narrative. Sex is a really easy way to do that. You just lie there and let them do what they want, and they go away crowing about it, and that’s a good couple of weeks when people will talk about that instead of about me getting a shit mark in Defence or how they’re sure my dad must be so disappointed in how irresponsible I am.”

Louis is still frowning, trying to parse that, wrap it up in his understanding of the world.

At last he blows out a breath. “I suppose sex at least is something fun to do, if you’re going to do anything.”

“Fun?” Lily’s eyebrows quirk. “For guys, maybe.”

“What?”

“Well, I mean, no offence, it’s not, like, fun from where I’m standing. Not saying it hurts or whatever, but it’s just… I dunno. Something to be done.”

He’s really frowning now, intent on her. “You do – I mean, you know it should be fun for you, right?”

Lily shrugs. “Maybe when I’m older.”

“Lily, it should be fun now. Isn’t that – why were you with Wes, down there, if you didn’t think it would be fun?”

She shouts out a laugh, mostly because there’s a look on his face she isn’t sure about, something twisting and sharp, and she thinks she needs it to go away.

“Wes Bones may be hot, but I have it on extremely good authority that he is not capable of making it ‘fun’.” At the look on Louis’ face, she clarifies, “Bit of a wham, bam, thank you ma’am kind of thing I’m told.”

Louis’ face screws up and then, quite unexpectedly, he starts to laugh.

“God, it feels good to know that.”

Despite herself, Lily starts laughing too. “Yeah. Turns out a pretty face doesn’t translate to any kind of skill in bed.”

Louis shakes his head and flops backwards on his bed, folding his hands on his stomach. 

“I dread to think what my exes say about me.”

Lily lets her head fall against the back of the armchair, slumping into its squishy embrace. 

“I can find out, if you want.”

“It’s alright,” he says, lifting his head to shoot her a smile, “I think I’m probably better not knowing.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Actually, I happen to think I know what I’m doing.” 

“They all think that,” says Lily darkly, and Louis rears up again, laughing louder. 

“You’re probably right.”

The laughter settles into the silence and then dissipates. He’s still looking at her, blue eyes dark in the dim light. There’s a lot of Lily telling her she shouldn’t, but she looks right back. He’s wearing a simple white shirt, form-fitting and soft, draping over the curves of his muscles and down into the belt on his trousers. He’s beautiful, of course he is, beautiful the way Victoire and Dom are beautiful, like inside him there’s a candle that’s been burning since he was born. Lily has always known that in the conceptual sense – has known him, after all, all her life – but there is something different between knowing it and feeling it. 

He’s still looking back. 

It occurs to her, suddenly, that she can still take the family by storm with a pregnancy. Victoire might have pulled the rug from under her, might have announced an unplanned baby at a moment that could have been calculated to fuck Lily over as much as possible, but even an unplanned pregnancy couldn’t top getting pregnant by a cousin. 

It would work, she knows it would. The way Louis’ looking, the way he’s careful about touching her, the coldness in his eyes as he watched her and Wes earlier – she could have him, if she wanted. 

She’s never really thought of him as a cousin, after all, not the way she thinks of Hugo or Fred or even Teddy, just brothers one step removed. Louis has always been distant, outside her circle of family. She doesn’t think it would even feel like doing something wrong.

She stands up. Louis watches her go, expression carefully neutral. She sees his eyes flicker down and then back up again instantly and his face contorts, like he’s hating himself for doing it. She sees the look, and she knows she can’t do this.

She wraps her arms around herself and says, “Hey, could I borrow some PJs? It’s a bit cold.”

“Oh.” He swallows. She watches his Adam’s apple bob, half-mesmerised. “Sure.”

He gets up, broad shoulders tense, and burrows around in the trunk at the foot of his bed. He holds a pair of pyjama bottoms back at her without looking and continues rooting around for a top to match. At last he finds an old Quidditch t-shirt buried and turns, holding it in both hands. 

“Sorry,” he says, abashed, “it’s pretty crumpled.”

“It’s fine.” She holds out a hand and he passes it over. Their hands brush and he withdraws as though scalded.

“Do you,” he begins, and then he works it through in his head. She sees the thoughts chasing each other so clearly. A cousin could offer to let her stay, no problem, it wouldn’t be weird. She top-and-tailed a thousand times with Hugo as a kid. But with this strange other thing between them, begun some time between getting drunk in Hogsmeade and exposing souls in Greenhouse Three, makes sharing a bed feel like a bad idea.

Thank every deity in the universe, his phone goes off. He fumbles for it, overeager to answer, and Lily uses the moment of distraction to slip into the bottoms and soft t-shirt, neatly pulling her dress off underneath the top and dropping it on the armchair.

“Hey again,” he says, turning towards the window. “Everything okay?”

Someone’s rambling on the other end, overloud and frantic, and Louis tilts his head to glance over his shoulder and shoot Lily a very pointed look.

“Vic,” he mouths, and turns his attention back to the phone. Lily’s hands curl into fists. 

“Yeah,” he says to the phone, and then louder and increasingly desperately, “yeah, hey, look, it’ll be fine. No, it will. You’re just being emotional right now. Don’t – shit, sorry. I said sorry! I didn’t know not to say that you’re… yeah. Yeah. Look, Lily’s here. Why don’t you ask her?”

And then he’s thrusting the phone on Lily before she has the chance to tell him where he can stick Vic’s baby crisis. She accepts the phone automatically and, scowling at him the whole time, lifts it to her ear.

“Hi, Vic,” she says neutrally, “congratulations.”

“Oh, Lily, hi.” Victoire has always had a gift for making Lily feel about one inch high, just by being so much more in control of everything. Her voice is already steady, none of the shrill edge that was shrieking down the line to Louis. “I didn’t want anyone to find out, to be honest.”

“I won’t tell.”

There’s a brief silence on the other end of the phone, which Lily knows full-well is Victoire being entirely disbelieving but not sure how to press the matter without it being obvious that she doesn’t trust Lily as far as she can throw her.

“I’m serious,” Lily says, settling down into the armchair again. “I’d want you to keep the secret if it were me.”

“Right. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.”

Lily picks idly at a loose thread on the cushion and tries not to watch as Louis pulls his shirt off over his head and reaches for pyjamas. 

“It’s just a bit of a mess, to be honest,” Vic is saying as the muscles across Louis’ back bunch and shift in a way that makes Lily feel hot. “You know, the guy, he’s one of Teddy’s only real friends from Hogwarts. It’s not even been three months we’ve been properly seeing each other, not enough for me to even really tell anyone about him, and I reckon I’m already two months gone.”

Louis pauses and rolls a shoulder back, easing it back and forth as Lily watches, transfixed. 

“Have you been to a Healer?” she manages to ask, mouth too dry, and somehow quirks a smile over at Louis when he turns around. He shakes a pair of sweatpants over at her, tilting his head to the bathroom, and Lily nods. Watching him change out of his trousers is definitely not something she needs.

“Not yet.” There’s rustling on Vic’s end of the line. “I’ve taken a couple of tests though. It’s definitely happening.”

The bathroom door closes and the shower turns on. Lily pushes her head against the back of the armchair. God, she does not want to be having this conversation.

“You could always abort it.”

“No. Not again.” 

“...Again?”

More rustling, and then Vic suddenly explodes. “Shit, I didn’t mean to tell you that. I mean, fuck, you’re not the person to talk to about this. You’re sixteen, for Christ’s sake. Sorry. Louis shouldn’t have given you the phone.”

This is more like it. This is the fight Lily’s been itching for. “And I’m so damn irresponsible, right?”

“That is not what I said.”

“Sounded a hell of a lot like it.”

“Jesus, you three are so defensive.”

“Three?”

“You and James and Al. I didn’t mean it like that, not even close. I meant you’re too young to deal with any of this bullshit.”

“I deal with a fair bit of bullshit.”

“This isn’t really on the level of late homework, Lily.”

“Oh, fuck you,” says Lily, and hangs up the phone. She has the distant idea that she’s overreacted, but it’s very distant. Overwhelming it is the anger, red and raw, sweeping through her system and flooding it until it’s all she can feel. Louis’ phone buzzes in her palm, Victoire’s name on the screen, and Lily rejects the call and switches the phone off.

She’s amped, now, still drunk enough to let the rage lick away her last shreds of sense. The bad reasons for staying here suddenly seem a lot more appealing than the chance to do the right thing. 

Feeling as though she’s watching from outside herself, she gets up and crosses the dorm to the bathroom door. Her wand is still down in her dorm, but it turns out she doesn’t need it – Louis hasn’t locked it. She pushes the door open and steam rushes out. She doesn’t need to steel herself. She’s Lily fucking Potter.

She steps into the room, shuts the door behind herself and locks it, and then slips out of her borrowed pyjamas. Louis is in one of the shower cubicles, steam flooding out from inside. This one is locked.

Lily lifts a fist and then catches sight of herself in the mirror, magically free of steam. Her reflection stares back, eyes smoky and feral, cheeks pink with the heat, hair still pulled tightly back. Her pale, freckled shoulders disappear below the edge of the frame and she watches them shift as she lifts her hands to free her hair from its tight braid.

Like that, naked and thrumming with rage, she bangs a fist on the door of the shower. 

“Lily?” says Louis, and the lock turns. He pulls the door open a crack. “What… oh.”

She puts a hand on the door and pushes it open far enough that she can slide in to join him. 

“What are you doing?” His voice is hoarse, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. Lily doesn’t have the same compunctions. She lets herself drink him in, feels that unfamiliar burning ache she felt the stirrings of earlier as her eyes travel down him, all that toned Quidditch muscle, the deep V at his hips that leads to where he’s – oh, hard already, this part of him straining for her even as he presses himself back against the wall, keeping the stream of water between them.

She reaches out and presses a hand to his bare chest. His heart is thundering beneath her palm.

“Tell me you don’t feel it,” she dares him, stepping no closer. “Tell me honestly, and I’ll go away and we’ll never talk about this again.”

“You’re my _cousin_.”

“I don’t care if you don’t. I mean, look, we’re both half-Weasley, right? That’s half-pureblood. Purebloods did this all the time.”

“And look where it got them,” Louis breathes, but he’s not pushing her hand away. 

“I don’t think of you like a cousin. At least, not like the others. You’re – I don’t know. More. Better. Tell me it’s not the same for you.”

His jaw clenches, his eyes close, and at last he shakes his head. He can’t. 

That’s all Lily needs. She surges forwards through the water, kisses him even as her make-up sluices off her face, presses up against him and feels the warmth of him as he leans down into the kiss, his mouth opening hot and wet against hers. 

She reaches down, fearless, and closes her hand around him. He shudders in her grip, a groan hot against her mouth. Lily’s done this enough times to be good at it, firm and sure, pumping her fist back and forth as he puts both hands into her wet hair and grasps there. Lily gasps as her head falls back, the pull sending a spiking ache right through her, and then his mouth is at her bared neck. She moves her hand faster as the feeling of his lips and teeth at that spot send hot shivers all through her, the feelings so much more than she’s ever felt before. 

It’s too much. He jerks and groans again, turning them around and pressing her into the wall of the shower in his place. He thrusts a thigh between her legs, his own shaking, and his hands leave her hair and go to her hips, dragging her up and down with little finesse. 

Something is sparking in Lily, something too big to cope with. It threatens to overwhelm her, to drive all this shaky anger out of her and replace it with something explosive and tender. She picks up her efforts on him in response, and at last his head drops to her shoulder, the breath heaving out of him.

“Lily, stop, I’m going to—”

“Yes,” she hisses, triumphant, and doesn’t stop. He comes against her stomach, jerking forward in her grasp, pinning her against the wall as release shudders through him. She’s surprised by how much she likes it, caged here, him all around her, like he’s the entire world. 

He peels himself off slowly, reluctantly, and the moment they separate he tenses. Lily’s pulse spikes. He won't meet her eyes.

“This was – oh, God.”

“It’s fine.”

“No. You’re drunk, and I – why did you come in here?”

Lily tilts her head, the water still splashing down over both of them. “Why do you think? You wanted it too, don’t lie.”

“Wanting it doesn’t mean it’s okay to _do_ it, Lily, Jesus.”

He steps back at last, into the spray of water, and anguish twists his features as he looks at her there, naked with make-up smeared down her cheeks.

“I can’t believe I let this happen.”

Nettled, she steps forwards and shoves him. “You didn’t let anything happen, dipshit. I wanted to do this, and you wanted to do this, and it’s fine. We’re not hurting anybody, are we? Nobody’s going to know. It’s just you and me.”

“Exactly. _We_ know.”

Silence settles between them, thick and tricky. Trying to hold on to her bullish confidence, Lily swipes angry hands against her cheeks. Her palms come away smudged black and grey.

At last, Louis reaches out and turns the shower off. “Will you be alright getting back down to Slytherin?”

He avoids her eyes so carefully. Lily’s insides shift uncomfortably and she clenches her teeth to stop the hurt from rising.

“I’ll be fine.”

Lily borrows his wand to do a quick drying spell, wipes her make-up off as best she can with a spare towel, and then goes out into the dorm to change back into her party clothes while Louis sits in bed and tries not to watch.

“Please let’s not make this weird,” she begs as she bends to lace up her shoes. “I mean it. I actually… I like hanging out with you. And I liked _that_. So don’t get stressed out about this or anything. It doesn’t mean anything, right?”

Louis hesitates. When he nods, she’s not sure she believes it. 

“I—” she starts, and she honestly doesn’t know what to say next. Fortunately the door bursts opens at this point and Deltus Pucey stumbles in, attached at the mouth to a familiar dark head.

“Oh, Yell, _no_ ,” groans Lily, and pulls her away. Yelena comes away easily, tottering, her eyes blown wide with alcohol and pleasure.

“Hey,” she says brightly, putting a hand on Lily’s shoulder. “What’re you doing here?”

It would be convincing if she wasn’t already leaning into Lily, balance way off, one hand seeking out Deltus.

“Oi.” Lily twists them neatly, puts herself between the pair of them. “No. Your stupid boyfriend won’t like this, Yell. Remember him? Alveston? The one you keep saying your parents—”

“Hey, fuck off, Potter,” says Deltus, staggering forwards. “This doesn’t concern you.”

Louis pipes up, low and dangerous, “You speak to her like that again, Pucey, and I’ll—”

“Jesus.” Lily wraps an arm around Yelena’s waist and hauls her towards the door. “I’m taking this drunkard back to the dorms. Have a wank in the shower and call yourself lucky, Pucey.”

When she glances back over her shoulder, Deltus is looking drunk and sullen and Louis is looking sober and embarrassed, red creeping down his neck. Lily should find it pathetic, maybe empowering, to know the thought of a shower now can have him looking like that. Instead it just makes her ache.

“See you, Louis,” she says, and yanks Yelena bodily out the door before he can reply.

-x-

“Oi oi.” Parks sits up in bed when Lily finally manages to get Yelena through the door to their dorm. “What’s occurring? 

“This idiot was about five seconds from going to bed with Deltus Pucey,” she announces, and hurls Yelena bodily onto her bed. “What’s our motto?”

“Never surrender,” says Parks, hopping up and coming over. She’s got someone else’s lipstick smeared all the way down her neck, but Lily has other priorities right now.

“True,” she concedes, “but the other motto is don’t drink unless you’re willing to live with your drunk self’s decisions.”

“Deep.” Parks starts to pull Yelena’s shoes off. “But fair.”

Lily sighs and starts wrestling Yelena out of her clothes, fending off drunken blows until they have her in just a slinky camisole and her knickers.

“I’ve never seen her this drunk,” comments Parks thoughtfully, poking at her arm. “Do you think we ought to get her to throw up?”

Lily sighs again. “Yeah, probably. Fuck. This is not how I saw tonight ending.”

“Yeah?” Parks reaches to help as they drag Yelena to her feet and stagger towards the bathroom with her. “So how did it go before it ended? You get into Wes Bones’ pants?”

“No.” Lily is glad to have Yelena lolling between them for this; Parks has always been far more insightful than anybody else realises. “Got talking to my cousin Louis instead. Turns out fucking Victoire is pregnant.”

“That _bitch_ ,” says Parks loyally, and together they manhandle Yelena to her knees in front of one of the toilets. “How far gone?”

“Two months, roundabout. I had to speak to her on the phone.”

“Poor you.” Parks crouches down beside Yelena and looks at her critically. “What d’you reckon – spell or fingers?”

“Spell. She’ll murder us in the morning for fingers.”

“True. Messier, though.”

“Worth it.”

Lily picked her wand up as they went. She slides it between her fingers now, one leg out to keep Yelena upright. The cedar is warm and familiar against her skin, precious and true. She thinks, if it could talk, it would probably complain about having to perform this spell so often.

She jabs it at Yelena’s stomach anyway. “ _Deiectioni_.”

Yelena convulses almost immediately, heaving over the toilet. Lily turns her head away in disgust while Parks carefully holds her dark hair back. When she’s finished, Lily flushes the toilet and they get her up, forcing her into the shower until her hair is plastered to her head.

With her arms under the warm stream, Lily can’t help thinking back to her first shower this evening, steamy and hot, the feel of Louis against her, tall and strong and unyielding.

“Alright,” she says to Parks with a nod, “turn it cold.”

Yelena full-on screams when the water blasts freezing down onto her, and she’s shivering and cursing as they wrap her up in a towel and bundle her back into the dorm to sit by the wood burner.

“I hate alcohol,” she moans a short while later. She’s got her head against Lily’s knees and Lily is stroking her hair gently, trying to apologise for the rough treatment.

“I know, my love,” Lily promises, bending to wrap her into a hug. “I’m sorry.”

“Lemme go t’bed.”

“Alright.”

Together Lily and Parks help her up and get her tucked into bed in her pyjamas. Parks pulls a blanket up over her and then shakes her head down fondly.

“She’s going to feel like hell tomorrow. Speaking of, how are you feeling?”

“Not too bad, actually. I don’t think I’ve had as much as the others.”

“Any sign of them?”

“Neither hide nor hair.” Lily sighs and rubs her eyes, which reminds her she needs to take the last of her make-up off. She does so slowly, tiredly, and then struggles into her pyjamas like it’s the hardest thing she’s ever done.

By the time Beth, Clary, Winnie and Ophelia stumble in an hour later, all three of them are tucked up in bed with their curtains magicked shut and silenced. The giggling, swearing and eventual snoring doesn’t penetrate the spell.

All the same, Lily lies awake for another hour or two, staring up at her dark green canopy. _It doesn’t mean anything,_ she’d said to Louis. The problem is that she’s starting to feel like maybe it does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the comments and kudos so far, guys! In this chapter Lily digs herself deeper into this hole and yet again fails to make good choices. 
> 
> Trigger warnings for: references to underage drinking, sex.

Lily’s hangover the following day keeps her from doing anything more than lounging in the dorm with the other girls, stirring only to use the complicated charm her older brother taught her that stops the stairs from keeping boys out. Orion, Euan and Ellery join them in the late morning with mounds of bacon sandwiches begged off the house elves in the kitchen and, miserably, they watch their way through all three Lord of the Rings movies.

“Oh,” says Winnie suddenly, in the middle of a big battle scene. Lily looks round to find her with her head turned, staring out of their big window that looks out into the sunlit depths of the lake. 

“Yikes,” agrees Beth, and gathers her blanket closer a little nervously. Five or six merfolk are clustered outside, one of them with a grindylow on a little leash, staring fixedly at the magically-enlarged screen of Parks’ contraband laptop. 

Euan flops back down into his nest of cushions and blankets.

“Ignore ‘em. They’ve probably never seen a screen before.”

It’s a bit weird, having the merfolk outside, but there’s a general feeling that closing the curtains on them would be too much of a dick move, so they all just huddle down a little deeper and try not to look round too often. 

“Hey, stop it.” It’s Yelena’s voice this time, practically the first words she’s spoken since she staggered out of bed looking green this morning. They all turn and find Orion stood in front of the window making an obscene gesture at a mermaid in the middle of the group. She’s looking back at him with an expression of deep disgust.

“Orion, for God’s sake.” Beth’s lip curls. “We can’t trust you anywhere.”

“Hey, she’s looking,” says Orion, turning back to his mermaid. He springs back with a yelp of surprise as the rest of them cackle in delight – the mermaid has taken the opportunity to plaster herself against the glass while he wasn’t looking, making sure both her teeth and the wicked dagger in her right hand are extremely visible.

Winnie levers herself reluctantly to her feet and makes a strange series of gestures at the merfolk. The angry mermaid peels herself off the window and nods, reluctantly, then they all turn and swim off with a woosh of bubbles.

“What was that?” asks Lily.

“I told them sorry about Orion, he’s not all there mentally.”

“You–” explodes Orion, but he’s drowned out by a volley of questions about how she said that.

“Honestly, you lot never listen to me. My sister’s deaf, remember? We use sign language at home all the time.”

“I didn’t know merfolk could sign,” remarks Ellery with genuine interest. “I know they have their own language, but–”

“Yeah.” Winnie sits back down, leaning into Clary. “Wizarding sign language is based off merfolk’s signs originally. It’s not perfect but you can usually understand their signs if you know ours, or close enough.”

“Like Bosnian and Croatian,” says Ellery importantly, and Lily gives him a weird look.

“What a random fucking example to use.”

“I actually–” 

“Shut up, all of you,” snaps Euan, reaching out to turn the film back on, “Faramir’s about to ride out on Osgiliath. This is my favourite scene.”

“You goddamn nerd,” says Parks, but she passes him more chocolate anyway.

As the film plays, Lily pulls out her phone. She’s on her own bed towards the back of the room, nestled in a beautifully fluffy white blanket her mum bought the summer before, for once not entangled with one of her friends on the floor below in the mound of pillows they like to burrow into for movie days.

Trying to ignore her nerves, she unlocks her phone and checks her messages. 

Irritable, she exits out and swipes through Instagram and Snapchat just in case, but there’s nothing from Louis. Thoughtfully, she taps her fingers on the back of her phone a few times, and then puts on her big girl boots and pulls up the keyboard.

He doesn’t text back. Lily grits her teeth and places her phone carefully on the bed beside her, springing for it every time a notification lights up the screen and trying not to give in to the rising resentment as each one proves not to be him.

None of them feel up for getting out of pyjamas, so Euan disappears to retrieve one of the enormous hampers of food his mother sends with astonishing regularity and the rest of them pool their resources in the middle of the floor.

Munching on a magically cooked toastie with her back to the window, Lily surfaces from dark contemplation to find the others staring at her expectantly.

“What?”

“I _said_ ,” says Parks, “you never did say, what happened with Wes Bones last night? You two sure looked cosy on the dance floor.”

“Oh.” Lily shrugs. “Nothing, in the end. I got distracted.”

“Shock,” mutters Beth, and Lily shoots daggers at her.

Winnie pipes up, through a mouthful of marshmallows, “Distracted by what?”

“My arsehole cousin’s pregnant. Victoire.”

“God, I forgot you told me that. Big yikes, hey?” Parks pauses with a handful of crisps against her mouth. 

“Is it planned?” asks Ophelia nervously.

“Nah. She’s been seeing the guy, like, two months. Plus he’s an old friend of Teddy’s, so there’ll be big family drama.”

“Isn’t Teddy completely besotted with one of your other cousins these days?” Euan has a pork pie in each hand, a bite taken out of each one. It’s kind of gross, but with hangovers like these, it wouldn’t be right to judge.

Lily lifts one shoulder in an idle shrug. “I’m not sure he knows it yet, but yah. He won’t care about Victoire at all, but my Gran’ll make such a huge fuss of it, and my uncle George will send her up just for the laughs, and soon it’ll be a whole mess. I hate my family.”

“Tell me about it.” Orion has got over his fright with the mermaid and slumped down in a corner, tucked under Winnie’s baby pink duvet. “Morgana was such a bitch to me this morning. Cousins are the worst.”

“Morgana in particular,” agrees Winnie darkly, and it takes Lily a second to remember that she’s also a cousin to Morgana Malfoy on her father’s side. Purebloods, in Lily’s erstwhile opinion, really are far too related to each other.

She catches that thought in its tracks and just about manages not to wince. After last night, she supposes she’s no better.

She checks her phone again but there’s still no reply. Furious, she slams it down on her duvet and bundles up tighter in her blanket. Fuck cousins. Fuck family. She doesn’t need any of them.

-x-

Louis avoids her for two weeks straight. They're coming up on the final month of school before they all leave for the Christmas holidays, and Lily's not willing to let this thing fester any longer. There'll be lots going on at The Burrow over Christmas, and Lily has no intention of spending it suffering through stilted conversations with her other cousins. Louis has given himself away, now, showed her he's more interesting to her than any of the rest of them. 

The problem is that she can't find him anywhere. She goes to visit Al too often; he starts looking at her narrowly whenever he spots her coming through the portrait again, and she knows it's not long before he starts asking those deceptively disinterested questions.

She tries cornering Louis after Gryffindor quidditch practice but he brushes past her, attaching himself to his teammates and promising he'll come find her later.

Lily is not used to being ignored. It nettles her more than she thought possible.

Finally, she does the unthinkable and sets an alarm for 5am one freezing morning. She slips out of bed and into the thickest layers she owns, then sneaks up through the sleeping castle and out towards the Quidditch pitch. There she conjures a jar of flames and hides it against her stomach, under her cloak, and settles into the shadows.

He's there by 5.30. The figure appears out of the mist, broom propped up on broad shoulders, red-gold hair glinting in the light of a too-bright moon. He has a quaffle tucked under one arm, pressed between his elbow and ribs. From this far away, his face is in shadow, but there's a weariness to him that Lily is ashamed to have contributed to.

She slides around the perimeter of the pitch, keeping to the shadows. The flames against her midriff flutter in her grasp, like living things. The pulse of them against her belly makes her think of the baby she wants to inflict on the world, and it gives her the last push she needs to step out of the darkness and into a patch of that silver-white moonlight.

Louis whirls round with a curse, wand out immediately, quaffle falling forgotten to the frosted ground. She pulls the flames out so they flicker over her face. He doesn't put his wand away. He looks around instantly, like this is something forbidden. Like anybody might be watching.

She sighs and pulls her own wand out. “ _Homenum revelio_.”

The spell confirms it. They are alone. Louis lowers his wand, but slowly, his eyes still hunted.

“Look,” says Lily firmly, stepping closer, “I told you not to avoid me.”

“How can I not?”

“It's pretty easy. Just say hi when you see me, that kind of thing. Talk to me. Be normal.”

“I can't be normal. Not after—” He bites his own words off and turns away from her. Every muscle on him looks tense.

Lily props her weight over one hip and considers him frankly. Her silence draws him back, at last, one hand tight around the handle of his broom. So tight, in fact, Lily could swear she hears the thing groaning.

“What we did, that was wrong. We shouldn't have done it.” He gestures with his free hand, wide and helpless. “Lily, if anyone found out...”

“Nobody will.” She steps closer again, assured. “And I don't mean that in an 'I hope' kind of a way. I mean nobody will find out, not ever, not so long as you or I don't tell them. If you knew some of the secrets I've kept, you'd know. People find out what I want them to find out.”

“Oh, like,” he says, and casts around for some example, “like you and Scorpius?”

She smiles just slightly. “Yeah, actually. Just like that.”

“What, it got out and caused such a scandal because you wanted it to?”

“Yes. That was the week James put the McLaggen guy in the hospital. Remember? No, of course you don't. Nobody remembers, because they were all too busy gossiping about me and Scorpius.”

Louis' mouth is half open to argue back, but he closes it carefully to consider that.

“I did hear something...”

“Half a rumour, forgotten like it never happened in a few days.”

“So, what, you save up secrets and scandals until you need them? What are you planning for _this_?”

He flicks his wrist between them, accusing, and Lily rocks back on her heels. The denial comes out of her breathlessly.

“Nothing.”

“Oh, sure. That sounded believable.”

“No.” She moves close enough to grasp his wrist. He stills beneath her touch, a wild animal held captive by the lightest of cages. She pulls, just lightly, so his head inclines towards her. When she has him where she wants him, she gives him the tiniest shake. “You listen to me, alright? I've had about enough of this. What I did to you, what I did _with_ you, that wasn't a plot. It wasn't anything to do with anybody else.” The lies flow out of her so smoothly she buys into them herself. “It was about you, okay? Just you. I was up there in your dorm, and I was thinking that I was _happy_ , which is rare e-fucking-nough for me these days, and I realised that I was happy because of you. And not you like being a cousin, or whatever. Because of you as a _guy_ , listening to me, caring about what I was saying. It made me feel... well. Like I wanted to do what I did.”

He's not pulling his arm away. “So you did it. Just like that.”

“Yeah, I did. You didn't seem too sorry.”

“I – Lily.” He does free himself now, but only to put his broom aside with infinite care, to lift both hands towards her and wrap them into the long, loose ribbons of her hair. “Of course I wasn't sorry. You're, I mean, beautiful is such a big word. But you are. The way you talk, the way you think, all of it, sometimes it's all I can think about it. And it's unbearable, because we're...”

He lets her go and turns, his breath clouding out into the air. Lily stays still as a statue. Her flames dance inside their jar, throwing his monstrous shadow across the icy pitch and out of sight.

“How long?” she asks at last, the question small against the aching blackness of the night. He turns back, uncertain what she means, and she clarifies, “How long have you thought that about me?”

He coughs out a bitter laugh. “Too long.”

“When?”

“The summer. That week at Shell Cottage when a bunch of you came to stay. You'd spent, like, twenty minutes trying to persuade Lucy to put her laptop down and go in the sea with you. But then you'd just, I don't know, had enough. I was in the dunes, and I looked over, and you were just stripping everything off and yelling, like you were ready to commit murder, and you were wearing that orange bikini—“

The memory bursts over Lily like the first sip of firewhiskey, heady and burning. The sun overhead, that impossible late August heat; Lucy on the sand in front of her, squinting at a laptop screen she could barely see in the glare, trading conspiracy theories with wackos in their parents' basements. James had been pissing her off, as usual, still sore about her and Scorpius Malfoy, and Young Molly and Teddy had been laughing further up the sand, disgustingly adoring for all they couldn't see it about each other.

It had all filled Lily up until it boiled over, her usual reaction to her family, and she'd been screaming before she knew it, half-joking but half-deadly serious, caterwauling about how if no-fucking-body wanted to go in the ocean with her, she'd go in by her-fucking-self, and fuck the lot of them.

She remembers the freezing brace of the waves, even on that sun-soaked day. She remembers someone materialising out of the sunshine haze and plunging in beside her, laughing to himself, shaking the seawater out of his red-gold hair.

On a freezing quidditch pitch in November, she looks at Louis, and thinks, _Oh_.

“You didn't say anything.”

“Jesus. Of course I didn't.”

“But then you talked to me in the pub.”

He sighs. “More fool me. I was drunker than you were when – well. The other night.”

“I wasn't that drunk.”

“You were drunk enough.”

She slides closer. The last six inches of space between them feel like a chasm and yet also like nothing at all. “I'm not drunk now.”

“No.”

“Neither are you.”

“No.”

“I still want this.”

His jaw clenches. Lily watches a muscle there pulse, the movement made monumental by the flickering of her flames.

“We can't have this, Lily.”

“Do you know something?” At last she bridges that final space. She presses a hand up to his chest and then slides it onwards, up into his hair. He makes a nervous, questioning noise to the top of her head. She tilts her head back and smiles, slow and feral. “Telling me I can't do something just makes me want to do it even more.”

She kisses him then, or maybe he kisses her. She isn't entirely sure. What she is sure of is the strength of his arms, clutching her against him. The heat of his mouth, slanted open against hers. The certainty of his movements as he wrenches the jar from her hands and walks her backwards. The flames flicker and die on the grass, removed from the strength of her magic.

In the silver-dark, they stumble into the base of one of the stands. It's just warm enough among the folds of fabric for them to fumble their clothes open without freezing to death, Lily's cold fingers stiff and slow on the buttons of Louis' trousers.

“How,” she says, and can't say anymore, because he's kissing her again, hard and demanding, like there's an answer he needs from her but he can't yet form the question. Without knowing how he wants her, she improvises. She coaxes him free from his briefs, slides her hand up and down him once or twice, and then pulls back and drops to her hands and knees before he has a chance to blink.

“What,” he says, helpless, looming so far above her.

“Like this?”

He sprawls down beside her, already reaching for her. “Not like this.” He turns her, rough but tender, pressing her cloak down into the grass. “I want to see you.”

Nobody's ever articulated that desire before. It makes Lily weak in a way that scares her.

Defiance reaches out to extinguish the vulnerability. Lily can't remember wanting somebody like this, can't remember her body opening up so eagerly and completely.

He kisses her as he begins, expertly, to dismantle her. Every surge and drag of his hips is more explosive than the last. He puts his hand down between them, rubbing over her roughly, and sparks surge behind her eyes. Something tightens inside her, something magnificent and terrible, and she thrashes, reaching out to hold him off, to stop this awful thing from breaking over her.

“Come on,” he pants, spread over her, eyes too dark for her to see. “Come _on_.”

And she does. Like it's always been that simple. Her body convulses with white-hot desire, muscles seizing and spasming, every inch of her consumed. It's like a flash fire raging outwards from her core, like touching a flame to the tip of a long, long strand of hair and watching it shoot up and vanish.

When Lily comes back to herself, still heaving for breath, Louis is hovering above her and watching her with the closest thing to awe she's ever seen. She looks back. She's incapable of doing anything else. Like that, caught by her gaze, his hips snap faster, and it draws a groan from him that she wants to record and play to herself, over and over and over, until it's all she can hear.

Still they look. They look and look, stuck fast on each other, until Louis' eyes squeeze shut and his jaw tightens and he thrusts forward twice, three times, six times, so fast and so desperately she moans as intently as he does.

Afterwards, spent, he pushes his weight back off her and gazes down. One hand lifts, trembling slightly, and pushes a lock of hair out of her face. She lets him, replete, not feeling the cold at all.

“Shit,” he says, and then he's laughing helplessly, despairingly. “Oh, shit, Lily. What are we going to do?”

She has to laugh too. He rolls off her and onto his side next to her, reaching down to tuck himself back in and do his trousers up. Lily smooths down her skirt and wraps her cloak tighter, the cold ground under her finally making itself known.

“I don't know what we can do,” she tells him at last, rolling over and pillowing her head on his shoulder. “But I know I want it to involve more of this.”

“Oh, god.”

Despite himself, he wraps an arm around her, draws her close and holds her against him until both their hearts have slowed to something like a normal pace.

When she feels like she can stand without her knees giving out, Lily hops up and pulls him to his feet, careful to do no more than hug him once he's upright. This thing requires careful taming, a light touch the key to stopping him from bolting.

Back out in the moonlight, everything still looks the same. Louis' broom is waiting patiently for them, hovering three feet off the ground, innocuous and unaccusing. He reaches for it and swipes a hand along its smooth wooden length, reaching for the familiar in a world rapidly washing him away.

“Want to help me practice?” he asks. She doesn't really want to, but she also very much wants to know more of him, this person she couldn't have told anybody a thing about beyond the basics two months ago. So he hands her the quaffle and summons her one of the training brooms, and she freezes her arse off for an hour tossing quaffles as hard as she can at the goals while he saves effortlessly, like he was born for nothing more than stretching himself into impossible shapes to stop a strangely-shaped red ball from flying through three golden hoops.

The Ravenclaw team arrive for practice at 7am and Louis high-fives a few of them as he and Lily make way.

Despite what he means for their scores, the other quidditch players at Hogwarts like Louis. He's so unassuming with his talent. He's also, Lily has heard the Slytherin team crow, utterly useless as Gryffindor captain, given the position for his talent and wildly unsuited for it in any way that otherwise matters. She knows he leaves most of the decisions to his deputy, a long-suffering beater called Fredericks, and that the few times he does pull rank and overrule her, the whole team tend to regret it. Captains are supposed to eye up new recruits and train them, but Louis' been too obsessed with the game itself to remember that for the past two years. Once he graduates, Gryffindor are all but sunk.

“You're not bad, you know.” His voice echoes out of the cupboard where he’s storing her clapped-out broom. His head reappears, face relaxed and happy. “With the quaffle. Did you never try out? You’d make the Slytherin team easily.”

Lily just hands the quaffle back to him. “With my parents? Get real.”

“You mean they wouldn’t let you on?”

“No, course they would.” It’s not bragging to say that, not even close. A Potter name can buy you almost anything, good and bad. Lily, James and Al know that intimately. 

“What then?”

“It’s just too obvious. Too much of a cliché, you know? Of course the kids of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley would play quidditch.”

“James did.”

“Yeah, for a year, until he finally admitted he hated it and gave up.”

Louis can’t help grinning. “I remember that. In the middle of a match, right?”

“Yup.” Lily grins back. “Just dropped the quaffle and flew off over the Black Lake. Professor Eldridge sent Mum and Dad several strongly worded letters after it happened. They couldn’t find him for, like, nine hours.”

“Where was he?”

“Where else? Honeydukes. They found him passed out in one of the back storerooms surrounded by chocolate wrappers.”

Louis laughs now, full-bodied, head tipped back. “Shit, yeah. There was a picture.”

“Yeah. He’s got it framed in his flat.”

“Of _course_ he does.”

Louis’ still chuckling as he locks the store cupboard again and rolls his shoulders back, easing out sore muscles. Lily watches, and revels in being allowed to watch. In him seeing her watching, and moving a little slower, playing to it. 

“Hey,” he says softly, not stepping closer, “so, there’s a nice spot in one of the towers that I like to go to for peace and quiet sometimes. I was thinking, maybe Saturday, if you have time - I’ve been thinking more about the Arrows and Tutshill, and I could really do with your thoughts. If I bring food, will you come?”

Lily smiles, sweeter than she means to. “I’d come even if there wasn’t food.”

He ducks his head. “Great. Okay. Meet you by the eighth floor Transfig classroom? 6ish?”

“Sounds good. But now, I’d better get back to Slyth. My friends will think I’m up to no good if I don’t get back soon.”

“Aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Up to no good.”

She steals a glance around, confirms they are alone. Then she darts forward confidently, presses up onto her tiptoes, and drags him into a kiss. He lets it happen for a few seconds longer than she expected, but at last he pulls back, his hands around her arms, gently warning.

“I’m always up to no good,” she tells him wickedly, and steps back. His gaze is clouded, dark, expression blown wide by desire. It’s dangerous, how much she likes being the cause of that.

“Saturday,” she promises with a laugh, and moves out of his grasp.

“Saturday,” he confirms, voice husky. When she turns around at the doorway to the Gryffindor changing rooms, he’s still watching her. The way he’s looking – Lily isn’t sure what to do with it. There’s none of the possessiveness she’s used to seeing in boys when they look at her. None of the vicious desire. 

Her stomach squeezes tight. Oh god. She’s in real trouble here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things come together and fall apart, sometimes simultaneously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for: references to underage drinking, cousins having sex, pregnancy, references to homophobia

Parks notices something’s up the second Lily slides onto the benches at breakfast. Her eyes narrow across the table and she pointedly moves a big pitcher of orange juice aside.

“And where,” she asks slowly, “have you been?”

Lily is giddy but trying extremely hard to hide it. “With your mum.”

Orion, next to her, snorts hard enough to send pumpkin juice shooting out of his nose. Parks aims a withering stare at him. “It’s pathetic that you think that’s funny.”

Orion’s too busy mopping himself up to snap back.

“I was up for a run at six-thirty,” says Ophelia, eyes wide, “you were already gone.”

Lily busies herself buttering a slice of toast. “I had something to take care of.”

“Wes Bones?” Parks still looks incredibly suspicious.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” says Lily, who has been dissembling for as long as she’s been alive. Parks’ stare can take apart lesser liars, but – sober – Lily could win world championships in untruths.

Her body is still tingling with cold and with Louis, all the places they touched hot and yearning. Her face shows nothing of it. Her friends watch her narrowly, certain something is up but with no clue what. Lily just smiles at them all and, serenely, takes a large bite of toast.

By the time they split to head to various classes – Lily, Winnie and Ellery to Transfiguration and the others to Divination, Charms and Care of Magical Creatures – everyone’s given up on getting it out of her. 

Lily’s spellwork is all over the place today. Professor Wainwright leans over her desk towards the end of the class and stares down, his mouth thin, at the tea cosy she’s supposed to be turning into a flower of her choosing. It’s not even flower-patterned yet.

“I know lessons are just an obstacle in the way of your social life, Miss Potter,” he says drily, “but you’re usually more capable than this.”

Lily sighs as prettily as she can and cups her chin on her palm sadly. She tilts her head, coquettish, and blinks up at him. “To tell the truth, Professor, I’m not sure I understand the theory behind this properly.”

The people around her quieten, well attuned now to Lily Potter in a Mood. It usually means fireworks or laughter, and either are a useful balm to the boredom of class.

“Not knowing the theory has never stopped you before.” Wainwright steps back and folds his arms. “Give it a try.”

Lily sighs again and drags herself upright. She jiggles her legs just slightly, so an inch more of pale skin shows below her skirt, but Wainwright’s gaze doesn’t even flicker. He’s had far too much experience with teenage girls to fall for a trick that blatant.

Defeated, Lily says, “ _Mutatio_ ,” and prods her wand listlessly at her tea cosy. 

Wainwright frowns. “Again. With feeling.”

“ _Mutatio_.” Still nothing. 

Wainwright can feel the heavy restlessness of the class, all of them leaning in for some Lily Potter theatrics. He’s not about to fall for this one again.

“Fine,” he says, all but dripping with boredom, “if you don’t want to try, it’s on your head. I’m not the one taking OWLs in seven months.”

He turns to help somebody else, and Lily’s wand whips out, quick and smooth as a dream.

“ _Mutatio_ ,” she murmurs, and when Wainwright turns back around, a whole bouquet of white lilies greet him, oozing pollen onto the wood of her desk. Lily smiles from behind them, full of the devil. Wainwright just shakes his head, unwilling to play any more games with her.

Unconcerned, Lily lifts her flowers and buries her nose in them. When she emerges, eyes glowing, the freckles on her nose are dusted with yellow. 

He makes her stay behind after class.

“I just don’t get it, Miss Potter.” He pulls his thick-rimmed glasses off and presses his thumb into his right eye. “Your practical magical ability is one of the strongest in the year, but the lack of effort you put in in class – your grades are consistently some of the lowest.”

Lily doesn’t bother playing up to it without an audience. “I don’t like learning like this.”

“Learning how?”

“From books, from blackboards. In a classroom. It’s so boring.”

“It’s how it is.”

“I know. And it sucks. I’ve learnt more just being outside in the world than I ever have in a classroom.”

“Magic isn’t all about waving your wand and making things happen. It’s about the theory, the groundwork, about understanding why it works the way it does.”

“There’s no sense to it. It’s magic.”

“There are rules and structures. If we don’t control the magic, anything could happen.”

“But I do control it.” She pulls her wand out to prove it. One lazy wave, wordless, and a ribbon uncurls through the air between them in deep, Slytherin green. “Of course I control it. I don’t need to learn nine hundred years of theory to know that I can produce water or turn something into something else. It’s just… magic.”

He puts his glasses back on with a weary sigh.

“Even if I agreed with you, the exam board won’t. It’s all very well being able to fly through the practicals, but what about the written papers?”

“It’ll balance out. I don’t care about Os, Professor. My practical marks will get me through with an A even if I bomb the written ones.”

“That’s a dangerous game to play.”

“Those are my favourite types of games.”

He sighs. Lily is careful not to smile, but she knows she’s won this round. _It’s like walking into a mirror maze_ , Albus said the other night, and she’s abruptly fiercely proud of that. She doesn’t want to be having conversations like this. She doesn’t want to be thinking about her future beyond a party next week, definitely doesn’t want to be thinking about OWLs or NEWTs or adult life beyond them. She wants to live here, now, and nowhere else.

“You’d better get to your next lesson,” says Wainwright tiredly, and waves her off. “Just think about what I said.”

“You got it.” Lily hops to her feet, hooks her bag over her shoulder, and gathers her lilies up close. “Thanks.”

He mutters something irritable behind her but she doesn’t look back. When she arrives in Potions ten minutes late, Clary reaches for the flowers with a sigh of pleasure and Winnie waggles her eyebrows suggestively.

“What did Wainwright want?”

“He kept you late?” asks Ophelia enviously, and Lily gives her most inscrutable shrug.

“Wanted to talk about my lack of effort,” she says, grinning, “and I said, what lack of effort? I try very hard when I want to.”

“True.” Clary nods sagely. “You spent about four hours on your hair the other day.”

“Exactly.”

“Girls!” Professor Adain claps her hands together and scowls at them. “Not disturbing you, are we?”

“Sorry, professor,” chorus Winnie and Ophelia. Lily just sinks down in her seat slightly, still smiling.

-x-

Lily thrums with restless energy all week. Her friends see it and it makes even them nervous, afraid of whatever it is she might be up to. Last time she was in this mood, she got caught giving Scorpius Malfoy a blowjob in a classroom and was suspended for a week. The time before, she was drunk for four days straight and almost got herself killed messing around in Care of Magical Creatures. She’s done worse, they know that, but Lily in this mood is a Lily who could go do anything at any time. 

Lily doesn’t mean to set them on edge. She just can’t help herself. Every inch of her is buzzing, has been since that morning in the quidditch stands. When she passes Louis in the halls it’s the same as it has always been, a brief high five or traded jibes, but underneath everything’s different.

Finally, on Saturday evening, she climbs up to the eighth floor and heads for the classroom he mentioned. He’s hovering outside it, a box tucked under one arm, expression closed-off. When he sees her, it’s like sunshine breaking through clouds across his face.

“Hey,” he says, like it’s nothing at all, “come on. This way. It’s a cool spot, we should have it to ourselves. I’ve never seen anyone up there.”

“Sweet.” Lily steps forward with a smile. “Lead on.”

They climb up a narrow, spiralling staircase. Arrow slits let the cold in, whistling through the stone to play with their hair and clothes. The hem of Lily’s long skirt drifts around her ankles, the material soft against her skin.

“No wonder nobody bloody comes up here,” she puffs eventually. “It’s like climbing Everest.”

“It’ll be worth it.” Louis casts a glance back over his shoulder at her, expression cracked open with delight, and Lily can’t help smiling up at him. She’s never seen him like this. Joyous, relaxed, eager to impress. She likes it so much it scares her.

Finally, they come out into a slim, circular room. Pale blue curtains drape dustily around high, arching windows. The views are stunning. Lily hurries over to the nearest with a sigh of pleasure, then completes a quick lap, her eyes roving over the peaks and gables of the castle, the black stretch of the lake, the sun-touched tops of the trees in the Forbidden Forest.

“It’s something, huh?” Louis is putting the box down and opening it, digging in to produce a Grandma Molly apple cake, wrapped in waxy brown paper. “I found it last year when I was using the stairs to get fitter.”

“Exercise freak,” she tells him, and saunters over to accept a slice of cake. “So what’s been going on this week?”

“I got another call from Tutshill. They need a decision.”

“Shit. Heavy pressure, huh.”

“Yeah.” He settles down against an old couch and places his cake carefully in his lap. He's watching her unashamedly, his eyes lingering on the white flash of her ankles, the sun catching on her hair.

Lily is used to being looked at. She's been looked at as long as she can remember. People have been staring and taking photos since the moment her parents first let the world get an early glimpse of the youngest child of the Boy Who Lived, and it is a reality Lily has hated and accepted in roughly equal measure.

Being looked at usually feels like having a part of herself taken away. Like surrendering something. But Louis looks at her like he's giving her herself back.

She sits down opposite him just to make the itchy nerves inside herself go away and begins to pick, daintily, at her slice of apple cake.

“What I don't get,” she says thoughtfully, eyes narrowed against the afternoon sunshine, “is why you need to start now. I mean, you know, you're so obviously the best. They're all falling over themselves to get you. So why can't they just wait until you leave school? You'll still be the best then. Tell them to wait.”

“Wish I could. But they've said they won't.”

Lily tilts her head. “It sounds suspiciously to me like they're bluffing you.”

Louis reaches out and tweaks one of her toes.

“You would say that, you Slytherin.”

She kicks at his thigh, smiling.

“I'm serious. You're the best, they want you, so they're all trying to pressure you by saying if you don't sign now then you'll not get signed ever. But you are good. The best. If they want you now, they'll want you in September.”

“That's a big risk to take.”

“Not when you're as good as you are.”

He blows out a breath and looks away, tawny brows furrowed as he gazes out over the tops of the trees in the Forbidden Forest, thoughts chasing each other around his face.

Carefully, Lily sets her cake aside and crawls over to him, throws one leg either side of him and settles into his lap like she's never been anywhere else. He startles, turns back to her, and his hands come to rest on her hips as easily as that. He frowns up at her, questioning, and the closeness of him overwhelms her enough that she has to bend down and kiss him to make the feelings go away.

She doesn't understand this. Boys are not a thing that impact her. They're just – just a thing to be picked up, used, discarded. A way of hurting herself or hurting somebody else or feeling powerful, just for a moment or an hour. They're not this. Not dangerous. Not able to reach back into her and make a little home there.

Louis makes a quiet noise into her mouth, pleased and full of desire, and she can't help pressing just a little bit closer.

With her arms wound around his neck, she sits back, arching an eyebrow down at him.

He arches one right back. “What?”

“Call their bluff. Stay in school.”

“A month ago you were telling me to cut and run.”

“Well, do you want to?”

“I honestly don't know.”

“God,” she says, and can't help laughing, “you're so indecisive.”

“Not about everything.” He rears up, mouth searching, eyes bright and happy, and Lily smiles into the kiss as their lips meet. It's like she's never been kissed before when he does this, like she's a riddle he'll never get tired of trying to answer, like she's the most precious thing in the world.

He keeps moving, pressing her backwards, and Lily is pulling his sweater off over his head even as he's tugging at the laces of her top. He huffs out a breath against her collarbone, frustrated as it refuses to budge, and Lily starts giggling as she reveals the lace is just for show.

“God, _fashion_ ––' he starts to complain hotly, but then she just yanks the thing off and he buries his face against her chest, the rest of his words lost in her skin. He lays her down on the old couch and brings her off with his mouth, her cries echoing around the room, and even as she's coming down and he's rising up and pressing into her, all over her, everywhere around her, she's reeling because nobody's managed that before, nobody's even tried it.

It's as good as last time. Better. This time she knows how good it will be and she's ready for it, desperate for it. In the still, warm air of the tower top he pulls her apart again and puts her back together, every surge of his hips the answer to a question she didn't know she was asking.

Afterwards, she lies with her head pillowed on his shoulder, his hand stroking gently through her hair, their bodies cooling as the sun drifts weakly down in the winter sky.

“We're in trouble,” he admits softly. Lily sighs and nestles closer. If only she could climb closer still, right inside him, just live there behind his ribs and never face the world again.

“What's the endgame for this, Lily? Where does this go?”

She lifts a hand and lays it over his mouth, gentle but serious at the same time.

“I don't know. Stop asking.”

Whatever he says next is muffled, but she lifts herself anyway, props herself up on an elbow to turn and gaze down at him, her fingers held over his lips.

“Not everything needs an ending or an escape route. Let's just... see.”

He winds his fingers into hers and pulls her hand away, pressing a kiss to each fingertip.

“I don't know if I can.”

“You can.” She leans down, feathers a kiss against his jaw. “Just let it happen.”

To forestall any further complaints, she wriggles down the sofa and takes him in her mouth, trying to ignore how the sounds he makes jolt right down deep inside her, how – for the first time in her life – the pleasure this brings him is worth the discomfort and the taste.

He doesn't quite dare touch her, his hands hovering near her hair, brushing there just lightly, and his fists clench by his thighs when he comes. She reaches for her wand and vanishes the mess lazily, stretching back out alongside him, wishing she'd brought mints.

“That was a nice little trick to avoid the conversation,” he says, and he's trying to be stern, but he sounds too blissed out to be believable. Lily laughs, twisting closer, and doesn't deny it.

“God, Lily. I'm so screwed.”

Gently, she presses a kiss to his shoulder. All the muscle there delights her, evidence of his power and skill. To have it here for her taking is like being reborn. Like finding god. She wants to stay in this room, like this with him, forever.

  
-x-

Two days into the Christmas holidays, Lily's phone rings. She's in the sitting room with James, beating him into the dust on Call of Duty, and he lets out a howl of rage when she takes him out with a perfect sniper shot and then drops her controller like it's nothing.

It's Louis. She rejects the call and taps out a quick text: _Hanging w james. Ill call later xx_

James is a sore loser. He chucks the controller at the other sofa and folds his arms, glaring at her as she tucks her legs up under herself and opens Instagram.

“Albus thinks you've got a boyfriend,” he announces, apropos of nothing at all. Lily doesn't even look up.

“Does he.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, bully for him.”

“He's serious.”

“Him and the nine tabloids a month that link me to someone or other.”

James makes bug eyes over at her. Lily looks up at last and meets his gaze impassively.

“Come on,” she says dismissively, “you know rumours are always bullshit. You'll notice I, very pointedly, have not asked you about the gossip I heard about you seeing somebody serious.”

James goes very still. “Gossip? From who?”

“Al, via Teddy.”

“Teddy.” James' face contracts with rage. “That rat bastard.”

“Oho, so it's true?”

“No.” James has always been a lot of things, but he's never been that good of a liar. Lily tells him so now, and gets the finger for her efforts.

“I'm not seeing anyone,” doubles-down James, with a valiant effort to appear truthful. Lily just looks at him, long and slow, to show she doesn't believe him for a second.

“I don't care, by the way. It's your life. Whoever she is, she's lucky to have you.”

James takes in a breath like he's going to say something, and then lets it go, sagging. “Yeah, yeah.”

Their dad chooses this moment to wander in, holding a slice of toast and wearing a dressing gown, boxers, a pair of socks with kneazles on them, and nothing else.

“Jesus,” says Lily, alarmed. “Mum's only away for three days, Dad, it's going to be okay.”

“Ha, ha,” he replies monotonously, and ties his dressing gown shut. “Did I hear talk of girlfriends?”

James and Lily exchange a look, eyes narrowed.

“Oh, come on,” their dad says, flopping down into an armchair. “I'm not going to interfere. I'd just like to know what's going on in my children's lives.”

“I don't have a boyfriend.” Lily tells him, utterly truthfully.

James, with astonishing believability, adds, “And I don't have a girlfriend.”

Lily flashes a glance at him. Lying to adults comes easier to him than lying to everybody else, she thinks, the way it does all of them. The Potter children adore their parents, but that doesn't tend to mean they like telling them the truth.

Their dad gives them both a narrow look, eyes bright behind his glasses. Lily meets his gaze, blank as a stone wall. After a moment, he sighs and gives up, extending a hand out for the controller.

“Go on, then, let me give James a fight he can win.”

James snarls, but Lily laughs and hands the controller over, rising to her feet and plopping a kiss on her dad's head as she leaves the room and climbs the stairs towards the sanctuary of her bedroom. Once there she tucks herself up on her windowseat and opens the window as wide as it will go, sucking in great deep breaths of fresh air. She's been feeling sick all morning, the kind of sick that she's only felt a few times in her life. It's the nausea that follows the making of a monumental choice, when she feels like the choice might have been the wrong one.

Her period has never been particularly regular, but it's coming up on a month late now. She digs the edge of her phone into the soft flesh of her thigh. If this is happening, this is the plan. She wanted this badly enough to make her joints ache. It's her own fault for getting swept up in the incongruity of somebody wanting her for _her_ and nothing else, for revelling in the act of fucking someone who didn't have one eye on her fame or her father or her family.

Louis asked her just once about birth control, that day in the tower. He'd pulled away suddenly, horrified, and asked, “Oh god, I didn't even think – should I have used a condom? Why didn't you say?” She'd been suddenly reluctant to think about what lay behind that question, loathe to trot out the assiduously prepared lie. So instead she'd said, “I've got it covered,” and put the question firmly out of her mind.

Lily has an uncanny ability to hold two conflicting truths in her head at once. She had been able, until today, to hold her plan and what she is doing with Louis next to each other, without thinking of them as interlinked. Had briefly considered the fact she wanted a baby in the first place at least in part to take heat off Louis, not to increase it, and then set that fact aside with perfect disinterest. But now there's acid in her throat, and her period is late, and even she cannot hold the two facts apart: I slept with my cousin. I will have a baby that could tear this family apart.

Her phone buzzes against her thigh. She flips it over to look automatically and frowns down at the caller ID. Her thumb wavers over the accept button. It's Yelena, nobody she's ever hesitated over before, but Yell was against this from the start, and she's been checking in on Lily with an assiduousness that makes her spit. If Lily talks to her now she thinks she'll probably tell her the whole truth without wanting to.

So she lets the call ring out, and ignores the texts that ding in after, and just stares out into the street of their quiet, leafy suburb.

She's not sure how much later it is when she surfaces, neck prickling, and whips around to find James lurking in the doorway. He's got his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, the barbed hooks of his tattoo crawling viciously up from under the collar of his sweatshirt.

“Hey,” he says, more uncertain than she's ever known her brother to be, “can we talk?”

Lily just tilts her head into the room. James comes in, closing it carefully behind him, and takes a seat on the edge of her bed. Lily narrows her eyes. James has never sat on the edge of anything. He's all about sprawling into places he isn't wanted, taking up more space than he needs, cocky and indolent and always, always sure.

“Alright.” Lily tucks her feet up on the windowseat, pulls her knees into her chest, and levels her hardest look at him. “I think it's time you told me the truth.”

His hands ball into fists. “I haven't told anyone.”

“So tell me.”

“I–­–“ he breaks off, presses his fists together, breathes out hard. “It's not an easy thing to say.”

“Probably.” Lily lets her head fall back, the long length of her hair coiling down into the space between her spine and the wall, her shoulders hard against the brick. “Tell me anyway.”

It comes out of him in a rush.

“The thing is, right, I have been seeing someone. It's true.”

Lily stares at him impassively. He stares back, emotion high in his eyes. She and James have always looked the least like siblings, two opposite ends of a spectrum that Albus sits in the middle of. Lily has their father's narrow face and mother's generous freckles and bright hair, the straight and elegant Potter nose and the sweet curve of the Evans lips. James's hair lies somewhere in between, a darker red that goes copper in the right light, broad Weasley features with a square jaw that their grandmother says comes straight from the Prewetts. They are each a perfect and distinct storm of their genes, a unique cocktail of influences, mostly from people dead long before they were born.

But they have their eyes in common. Hazel eyes, a little bit green when the sun catches on them, very dark if the shadows fall right. Lily has always treasured this a little bit of sameness, envious of the stroke of luck that gave Albus that arresting green, but proud that – no matter what – she and James will always mirror each other in the way they look at the world.

She lifts a shoulder almost imperceptibly. “So what? You see a lot of someones.”

“This is,” he begins, then bites the inside of his cheek and tries again, “this is different.”

“Oh. Someone you like? I mean, properly?”

James pushes himself to his feet in a sudden rush. He always looks better moving. Stillness has never suited him. He paces from one side of Lily's pale green bedroom to the other, holding one wrist tight in the opposite hand, digging his thumb into the tendon there. Lily lets him go back and forth three times before she rolls her eyes and says, “If you're not going to tell me, then––“

It comes out James like a flood. “His name's Eirnin.”

It takes half a second for Lily to understand the implication. When she does, her hands twitch, her understanding of her brother abruptly rearranging itself in a new and unexpected way.

“Oh,” she says quietly. “Oh. Right.”

“It's not––“ James bites the words off, paces one more time, then stops in the middle of her bedroom, palms spread, his forearm red where he was worrying at it. “Fuck, Lily, I don't know what the fuck to do. I didn't – look, I didn't even know I could like a guy like that, right? I'm not – shit. I don't know what I am. And I just, this happened to me so fast, and it's like the best high ever even when he just fucking _looks_ at me, and I just know, I know what people are going to say, how much they're going to jump on this, and I don't––“

Lily gets off the windowseat. Before he can do or say anything else, she wraps her arms around his middle and holds on there for dear life. James is restless against her, twitchy as an addict, but he embraces her in return, his arms warm and familiar around her shoulders. Lily lets her nose squish up against his shoulder and breathes against his sweatshirt and says nothing at all until she feels like he's trembling a little less.

“Don't ask me if I'm sure,” he says into her hair, “because I am.”

“Wasn't gonna,” she replies untruthfully, because the fact is that he does have to be sure, that times have moved on but not enough that this won't be front page news for weeks, that this fact about James will be bigger news than Victoire's pregnancy or some popstar disappearing from the public eye or maybe, even, Harry Potter's daughter having her cousin's baby. It'll be close, though.

“It's going to ruin his fucking life, Lil.”

Lily squeezes him as hard as she can. “He'd better be sure, then.”

“He is.” James shivers just once more, violently. “Fuck, but he is.”

“Okay.” Lily pulls back at last, punches him lightly on the arm, tries to coax a smile. “Go on then, dish. How'd you meet?”

And so, inch by inch, she turns this into something slightly less world-shaking for James. Into just another meet-cute, Eirnin coming down the stairs of his parents' house and James dragged there by Teddy to apologise for laying into his brother on some night out. Engineering meetings, antagonising him, trying to get beneath the cool, impenetrably golden exterior.

“To make things even worse,” announces James from beside Lily, where they're both lying on her bed, hands on stomachs, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars she stuck to her ceiling when she was eight, “he's a fucking Catholic.”

Lily frowns. “I think I only know, like, three actually religious people.”

“I know, right? But that's the thing. I think that's when I realised how, like, bad I had it. Because I thought he was weird about me because I was a Potter, you know, and he didn't want all the drama. That's why he was backing off. But it wasn't that at all. It was a faith thing.”

Lily knocks his elbow with hers. “Any religion that tells you who you can and can't love can get fucked, to be honest.”

“Right? I should have said that.”

“You didn't?” This does not sound like the bolshy brother Lily knows and loves. But James just sighs, knocking her elbow back.

“It was – it still is – so tricky. Neither of us know what we're doing with this, Lil. I've never felt this way about anybody, and I never expected to feel it about a guy. And he's – he's felt this before, but he's never pursued it, always run away from it before it could turn into anything.”

“It's a wonder you got anywhere at all,” Lily tells him dryly, and he laughs, a half-bitter snort of a thing.

“You're telling me. But it was like, I don't know. Inevitable. I walked away a hundred times, but I'd end up walking a complete circle and ending up right back where I started.”

“How long has it been now?”

“Three months since we met. Six weeks since I kissed him.”

“Three months?” Lily hauls herself up to her elbows. “And you're talking all this true love bullshit?”

“Did I say true love, dickhead?” James follows her up, pushes her hard enough to make her shift on the bed. “I don't know about true love. I just know that – well, not being around him feels like shit. And I'm not so interested in feeling like shit anymore.”

“Really? I love it.”

“I know you do, you weirdo.” James grabs her abruptly into something that's half a hug and half a headlock, and Lily screeches and laughs, trying to wriggle away, but not trying that hard.

This should be it, she knows. This should be the moment where she trades his confession for her own.

“Get off me,” she says instead, still laughing, and at last succeeds in yanking herself free. “God, you animal.”

He lets her go, smiling at her a trifle nervously. “Thanks for not being weird about it.”

She shrugs. “We've all done weirder things than fall in love with a gender we weren't expecting. Now, look, do you think we can persuade Dad to make his brownies if we work together?”

“We'll have to trade conversation for them.”

Lily smiles, just a little. “Oh, I can think of worse things.”

“Fine,” says James, and grabs her into one last hug before she pushes him away, yowling.

“You're a sap.”

“Yup,” he says, and laughs all the way downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for the lovely comments so far, please know that each and every single one makes my day and gives me reason to keep on sharing this fic<3


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Christmas at the Burrow and things are about to go wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for continuing to read and comment – it really does mean the absolute world to me.
> 
> Trigger warnings in this chapter for: mention of drug use, underage drinking, pregnancy, cousins having sex.

It's December 22nd at the Burrow. The family have moved in en masse, ready for five straight days of Christmas festivities. Lily's put her bag down on a blow-up mattress in what used to be her uncle Percy's bedroom, stuffed in there with three extra beds and a pile of things belonging to Lucy, Roxanne and Daisy Longbottom.

The familiarity of it all makes her restless. They do this every year, decamp three days before Christmas, spend two nights with the whole sprawling extended circle of family and friends, Longbottoms and the kid Scamanders and even, on a couple of memorable occasions, co-workers of her grandfather's from the Ministry who have no family to go home to. Then, on Christmas Eve, the hangers-on leave and it's just Weasleys and their families, a sprawling mess of loud voices and loud laughter and outrageous gifts.

Lily lasted two hours in the crush of the sitting room, watching Victoire darkly over a glass of vodka and lemonade, her heartrate spiking every time her cousin laid one elegant hand over the miniscule bump in her abdomen. Albus was stood beside her, which might have reassured her, but he's been high since the 20th and shows no sign of coming down any time soon.

So finally she shouldered her way out into the freezing darkness of the garden and now she's standing under the porch, hands tucked into her armpits, trying to decide if it's worth the cold to stamp out into the snow and give her anger to the winter night.

Someone touches her shoulder softly.

“Hey.”

She turns, but she doesn't need to. Louis has come round the side of the house, cheeks blown red from flying around, hair tousled. She heard the footsteps on the snow, caught a whiff of the familiar pine scent he wears. It says a lot, probably, that she knows him by the press of his feet against the ground.

“Happy Christmas,” she says, and curls one hand into a fist over her stomach. Last time she saw him, it was a week into the holidays and she wasn't so sure. They hung out on a wintry beach, he made her laugh enough to forget about the maybe, and then they fucked in his bedroom when his parents and sisters went out for a walk. It made Lily feel so good she went home dreamy and glowing, slept better than she had in weeks.

It was easy, being unsure. Easy to put the truth to the back of her mind.

But now she's iron-certain, and it changes everything.

He comes closer, brow furrowed. “Shit. It doesn't sound like it's that happy. You okay?”

She shrugs, her huge coat sliding back and forth on her shoulders. “Fine. You been flying?”

“Yeah. I forget how beautiful it is here in the dark. Grandpa's put fairy lights all the way down the garden to the river. You should come see.”

Lily's in the kind of bad mood that would usually make her say no. But he's looking at her entreatingly, and the way the light from the house is catching on his face makes him look the kind of handsome that makes her insides ache, and through a cracked-open window she can hear the low baritone hum as Euan's dad says something funny and the clear, pretty ripple of Victoire's laughter rising above the hubbub.

She sets her drink down on the wall and hops off. “Alright. You're on.”

He grins, leads her towards the trail of stepping stones that wend their way down the garden and to the little gate that opens out onto the countryside all around. He wasn't wrong; the lights are beautiful, crystal-shaped and sparkling as they pick their way down the hill.

“Go on, then. What's on your mind?”

He takes her hand, now, out of sight of the house. Lily lets him, though she shouldn't, though this should be where she tells him the truth instead of stitches herself deeper into her lies.

“Just stuff.” She crunches a frozen leaf under one boot, gaze fixed on the ground. “Nothing important.”

“Oh. Well, it seems important.”

“It's not.”

He subsides, frowning, and Lily tries to figure out how to take her hand away. Every time she looks at him she feels a phantom weight in her belly, like the barely-there baby weighs its birth weight already, dragging her towards the ground.

Lily has always been a dab hand at taking cards and spinning them to her advantage. At looking at a situation and plotting a way to ride it to a better end. And this – this is what she wanted, this is what she was hungry for. Another twelve, fourteen, sixteen weeks of hiding and then she can march into a crowded family room and whip off a baggy top and let them all see what she's done. Let the horror of it sink in, all of them staring, unable to deny what she's done.

Except she can't. Not anymore. Not now that room in her imagination contains Louis, staring back at her in despair. He'll stand beside her, because of course he will, that's who he is as a person, and half the family will never speak to him again, and if it gets out these offers of Quidditch spots will mysteriously dry up. Because it isn't illegal, what they've done, not technically, but it's enough to turn him from a golden boy into a gossip-sink, more trouble than he's worth for clubs who have their pick of players all over the world. And what gets her, what gets her worst is that she told herself she was getting pregnant to help him. Lied to herself and said this was about creating such a furore he'd be able to do anything he wanted. Really, if she'd stopped to think about it – if it had ever really been about him instead of her – she would have realised so much sooner that this could never work. This was selfish, first last and always, all about Lily Potter and nobody else at all. She's been lying all her life, and to herself most of all.

Fuck. She should have just shagged Wes Bones and been done with it. 

She stops dead halfway between the garden gate and the river. Louis startles to a halt beside her, Quidditch reflexes instant, and turns to her insistently.

“What is it? What's wrong?”

She stares at him, eyes wide, head spinning. She wants him. That's the problem. She told herself she wanted him for the baby and it was never true. She wants him for _him_ , for the soft way he says her name, for the light in his eyes when she looks at her.

She wants him. Her hands curl into fists. She wants him and she's Lily fucking Potter, she takes whatever she feels like taking no matter who it hurts, no matter what damage it does. She punishes the world for all its judgement, for all the articles saying she's not enough or she's too much or she's nothing worth talking about at all. She doesn't second-guess or go back on herself, never doubts her own decisions.

She takes.

Without a word, she lurches forward, hooking both arms around Louis' neck and dragging him into a kiss. He comes willingly, mouth hot, hands delving inside her coat.

They're not far from the line of trees by the river. Lily pulls him there, her hands all over him. She knows what she needs to do to ground herself – what she always does when her head starts to spin and self-loathing spirals inside of her, swallowing her for the inside out. She needs to fuck him, to be fucked by him, to surrender her body in a way that obliterates everything and leaves only the hard shell of herself, all spite and shame. She needs the self-hatred that comes with sex. She needs it to ground herself, to beat herself back into shape. Louis not giving it to her before has fucked her up. That's what the problem is. That's what it must be.

She pulls him up against a tree, ignores the confused sounds he makes into her mouth when she starts to tug at his clothes.

“Out here? Lily, for god's sake, it's freezing—“

“Shut up,” she orders, and pulls him closer, shoving his jeans down to his thighs. It's awkward, a little rough, but when he pushes into her, the burn is exactly what she needs. And there with it, the loathing, the disconnect from her own body. The familiar shutdown.

This is what she chases every time she stumbles drunkenly from a party into a boy's bed. A way to hurt herself without actually hurting. This is what it should be – not tenderness, not sparks.

Louis has his face buried in her shoulder, panting hard into her coat. The way he says her name makes her guts twist. She pushes her head back, stares up at the black mess of branches, and despite everything her body responds to him, curls into him, tightens in his arms. God. She's such an idiot. Such a goddamned fool.

Afterwards, he does his jeans back up and reaches to hold her. Lily lets him but stays stiff in his embrace. Quietly, determinedly, she's doing everything she can to build that shell back up, the shell she's worn all her life and should never have let him worm his way underneath. She can't have this. Can't have his tenderness or his affection. Maybe if she hadn't made it about the baby, about revenge, it might have been something she could have and hold to herself, a precious secret to keep her sane. But she did it this way, and that means she has to cut loose. 

It's time to walk away. Lily Potter always knows when to cut and run.

“Lily,” he says, so quietly, “talk to me. Tell me what's going on.”

She shudders him off and zips her coat back up. “Nothing's going on. We looking at the river or what?”

He follows her all the way down to the slow wend of the river, snow piled up on its banks. His silent is weighty, thoughtful, and it's making Lily itch halfway out of her skin. It's never been this hard to walk away before.

“I don't,” he starts to say, and she spins on her heel and marches back up towards the garden. When she looks back, he's staring after her, and the look on his face makes her feel like something has torn inside her.

“I'm sorry.” The words come out of her on their own, thick with despair. She hesitates, one foot hovering, unsure whether to turn around or keep going. “I'm not – I don't – I can't deal with this.”

He blows out a breath, crosses his arms over his chest, stares down at the snow beneath his feet.

“I told you it was a bad idea. Us, I mean.”

“I know. It was. It is.”

“Yeah.” There's a long, long beat of silence. And then he looks up, expression wretched. “But I still want it. So much it frightens me.”

Lily stays where she is, a little way up the gentle slope, the air cold enough to burn her throat.

“Enough to sneak around forever? Where does this go?”

“I thought you didn't care about that.” He springs into action, marching up the hill, taking her arms in his hands. “You told me, Lily, you told me we didn't need to think about any of that. That it was just this, us, and nothing else. The present. Right now.”

He's close enough that she has to tilt her head back to look at him. She wants to kiss him. She wants to shove him away. 

“I know. But—“

“But.” He lets her go. When he meets her eyes again, it's like he's looking at her from the other side of a fathomless canyon. “There's always a but.”

“What else could there be?”

“I don't know, Lily. Christ. A future? You know, we could have that. It's not the craziest thing.”

“What, just go back inside and tell everyone that—“

“No. Jesus. But this is – people hide things. Even big things like this. It'll just be, you know, we could live close to each other, keep our own places. Or move abroad, even. The South American Quidditch League is even better than the British and Irish one, and nobody there would care about us. If we lived together, it wouldn't be that weird, cousins wanting to stay together in a strange place. We could do it.”

Lily wants it with a fierce breathlessness that nearly kills her. She lets herself picture it for a moment, Louis coming in from training, her doing something impressive and well-paid and interesting, a little home for themselves in Rio de Janeiro or Lima or Santiago. A whole world away from the family and friends they love.

But if she's good at spinning the cards to her advantage, she's also good at recognising when it's time to cut and run. You don't build a winning streak unless you learn to walk away before something becomes a defeat.

“It wouldn't work.”

His jaw clenches.

“Louis, come on. People would know. They'd judge. And I couldn't, anyway, I couldn't take you away from the Quidditch League here. You're going to be huge and—“

“Quidditch is big over there, you know. We're not the only country in the world that plays it.”

“It's still no. I mean, for fuck's sake, we haven't even finished school yet. You want to hang our entire futures on the off-chance that this is more than just short-term lust?”

That stops him dead. He'd been reaching for her, cajoling, but now his arm freezes in mid-air. Carefully, he lowers it back down to his side. His jaw works for a second or two, and then he huffs out this tiny, bitter almost-laugh.

“The off-chance. Huh.”

Lily feels the sands shifting beneath her feet. She refuses to acknowledge them.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he says very deliberately, not meeting her eyes, “this was never just about lust, for me. But fine. That's fine, if that's what it is for you. I'm sorry I... sorry. I have to go.”

“Louis, wait—“

He pushes past her, strides on up towards the garden, and such is his intensity that Lily can't hope to keep up. She scrambles after him, clueless as to what she's going to say but unable to just let the misery in his words sit unanswered.

The confession clangs around her brain. _Never just about lust for me_.

The garden gate bangs shut behind him and she huffs as she reaches it, yanks it open, tries to chase him up the garden. But it's no good. He's inside the house by the time she makes it halfway there. She comes to a stop, breathing hard, and has to surrender as the door closes sharply behind him.

James is on the phone outside the back door. He's looking at her narrowly, his face pinched. Lily just glares at him until he gets distracted by the person on the other end of the call.

“Oi oi.” The voice comes from the potting shed. She looks wildly, and recognises Euan in the soft amber glow of a cigarette with deep relief.

“Jesus. What are you doing out here?”

“Avoiding the crush.” He budges up to make room for her as she comes over. It's warmer in the shed, and she wonders who cast the charm in advance. Victoire, she bets. It's exactly the sort of thoughtful and responsible thing she'd do.

“You look like shit,” he tells her, and reaches up to pull bark out of her hair. Lily just sighs and slumps sideways into him. James' conversation is indistinct, too far away to make out. The furore of the party inside is spilling out into the still night, muffled slightly by the snow.

“I _feel_ like shit.” She wants to ask if he's got any more vodka, but then her brain puts alcohol and the baby beside each other, and she feels a stab of guilt that almost makes her vomit. Shit. She's had two already tonight, and more last week when she went to visit Parks.

“You want to talk about it?” He lights another cigarette, the familiar ash of its scent curling up into her nostrils. She just leans a little closer, eager for his warmth, and shakes her head.

“Not really.”

“Don't suppose it's got something to do with your cousin there storming up for all the world like a guy who's just been dumped? And you looking like you've just had a hasty shag in the woods?”

Lily's too tired tonight to lie properly. “Please don't ask about that.”

“Fuck.” Euan laughs around his cigarette. “That's fucked up, even for you.”

“I'm constantly raising my standards of fucked-upness.”

“Ain't that the truth. To be fair, I'd give my cousin Anna one if I could, she's so hot it makes my whole body hurt.”

“Gross.”

“Pot, kettle, Weasley.”

“I'm a Potter,” says Lily, like that's the thing that matters, and lets her head fall onto his shoulder. “You ever wish you could just leave your life and your body behind and go do something else? Be something else?”

“Not really. I quite like being me.”

“Yeah, you would.” She reaches down, thumps his thigh, but without any intention to hurt. He laughs again, low and familiar, and rests his head against the top of hers.

“So you ended it, huh?”

“It wasn't ever a thing.”

“No? So he's not why you were giddy those last few weeks of school?”

Lily frowns. “I've never been giddy in my life, Longbottom.”

“Alright.”

He doesn't push it further, and it reminds her why she likes Euan so much. Prickly they might both be, but there's something about knowing somebody almost since birth. It bonds you, makes it hard to drive yourselves apart. And Lily has never wanted that.

So they just sit in silence as Euan's cigarettes burn and die, staring up at a thick winter sky, heavy with snowclouds and cold with promise. By the time Euan pushes himself to his feet and hauls her up, her knees cracking, Lily has managed to soak some of the coldness up into herself.

When they push back into the house, mugs of eggnog waiting, a group singing by the fire and Louis sitting sullenly in a corner of the sofa, pressed sideways by Young Molly and Dominique, Lily can smile blandly at him like it means nothing at all.

The problem is, as she lies awake later that night, bracketed by Daisy and Lucy, she keeps finding her hands resting on her stomach and her mind turning over what it might look like, this little piece of her and Louis.

-x-

Someone's watch beeps 2am quietly, and Lily sits up with a sigh. It's the following night, a full day of outdoor activities and lazy games and avoiding Louis behind her. On the other air mattress, Lucy is so deeply asleep she's barely breathing. With a tenderness she would never permit herself while her cousin was awake, Lily pushes her long hair out of her face and tucks it gently behind her ear.

She eases herself down to the end of the mattress and stands up on silent feet. Roxanne stirs on the twin bed, bleary, and Lily waves a hand at her, her voice barely audible.

“Can't sleep. Want anything?”

“Nnn,” says Rox, and rolls over to tuck herself firmly against the wall.

Daisy Longbottom's bed is empty, and has been since she levered herself out of it an hour ago and crept out. Lily had kept her breathing low and slow, eyes shut, and hoped extremely hard that Daisy wasn't going where she thought she was going.

Now Lily stands on the landing outside their small room and listens. The house is alive with sleep, creaking gently, cradling the family's dreams with soft purpose. Two uncles are snoring somewhere. But there's a patch of absolute quiet. A quiet unnatural in the Burrow.

Lily mostly doesn't want to go and confirm what she thinks it is. But she hasn't slept at all, her brain too wired, that strange phantom weight around her middle pressing down against her spine. So she sets her jaw and slips up the stairs to the top floor.

One door is open very slightly. Teddy is visible through the crack, sprawled out, way too tall for the narrow twin bed he's in. But it was that or share with James and Albus and Hugo, and Lily knows Teddy believes in sleep more than he believes in almost anything.

The other door is shut tight. Lily lifts a hand and presses her palm against it. The inaudible hum of wards and silencing charms vibrate against her skin. Carefully, she presses the tip of her wand against the wood. There are enough adults in the house to confuse the Trace, when the charm is as small as this one.

“ _Show me_ ,” she whispers, and the magic slips out and spreads, a perfect window carving itself from the door, invisible to the people inside.

She steps back immediately, her stomach curling, the window vanishing as quietly and quickly as it appeared. The golden spread of Daisy's hair against the dusty floor, the smooth white length of her bare body, her bent knees. And Albus above her, over her, his expression hidden from Lily, his hips driving into her relentlessly.

That alone would be enough, but it's the look on Daisy's face that gets Lily. Her dark brows pinched, her face desolate. Like she knows what this is, what she's doing, and hates herself for it – but can't bring herself to stop it.

It's different, with Daisy. Not like what Lily has with Louis. Daisy knows she is being strung along. Knows she will be discarded the second something else snares Albus' interest. And yet she crawls back to him any time he glances her way, on her knees, useless with love.

Lily despises her suddenly, the weakness of it, the pathetic way she watches Lily's brother when she knows he isn't looking. It's going to get her hurt – _has_ hurt her, more times than any of them can count.

Her lips pulled back in distaste, Lily pads back down the stairs, as quietly as she came. The sounds of sleep drown out the patch of quiet above and she gives herself to the hum gladly. Al left the door of his room open when he snuck out, so she can see inside – the narrow double completely empty, Hugo on the floor with his head facing the door, that tangle of red curls catching the light of the hallway lamp.

Lily shuts the door on him very gently and then continues downwards. The kitchen is dark and inviting. She goes in, closes the door carefully behind her, and lights her wand with a whispered, “Lumos”. And then nearly jumps out of her skin.

“Fucking – _James_. What the fuck?”

Her oldest brother is sat at the massive wooden table, clutching a mug, his hair swept sideways strangely and his eyes dark.

“Al woke me up leaving. Couldn't get back to sleep. Is he—“

“In the attic room, fucking Daisy? Yeah. Just seen them.”

Their voices are low. Lily slides into a chair across from James and places her wand on the table between them. She likes the way the light falls, like that, a little bubble of warmth and confidence. The kitchen sighs around them, settling itself in to listen.

James sighs and pushes the mug across the table towards her. She curls her hands around it, feeling the warmth leeching in, and steals a sip. When she pushes it back, James wraps his hands around hers and refuses to let go.

“I want you to tell me what you were doing with Louis.”

She holds his gaze, unblinking as a snake. “When?”

“Don't fuck with me. Last night. I was on the phone and he came up out of the garden looking like hell. I've never seen him look like that before. And then you – the way you looked––“

Lily lifts a shoulder. “We were looking at the lights Granddad put up. I teased him about something, I don't even remember what. He really didn't like it.”

James' face crumples. “God. Why d'you always have to lie?”

Lily yanks her hands out from under his and folds them against her chest. Her heart is racing, but her face is still.

“What?”

“I mean, Jesus.” He gesticulates wildly enough he nearly knocks the mug over, only the quiet of the house keeping him from raising his voice. “Lily, fuck, I know you never tell the truth. I _know_. But this, this is serious. Whatever this is, whatever you're doing—“

“Maybe he's doing something to me, huh?”

James just snorts thickly, wetly, and draws his mug back against himself.

“Louis couldn't do anything to you you didn't want doing. He's not that kind of person.”

“Oh, and I am?”

James just looks at her. In the lumos-light, his eyes are very dark.

“Yeah. You know you are.”

That cuts her more deeply than she expected. She sits there, her stomach twisted into nothing.

“You know what,” she says, and it comes out on a gasp. She stands, the motion fluid. James half-rises like he's going to follow her and she snaps a hand out, holding him back. “Sit down. You don't know _anything_.”

“Then tell me.”

“No. Contrary to popular opinion, no older brother has the right to dictate what a sister does or says or thinks. We're in the 2020s, James, not the 1820s.”

“I think I've got a _right_ ,” he spits, and he does stand now, his chair scraping back, “I've got a right to say something when my sister is fucking our cousin.”

It hangs in the air between them for a moment, thrown down. Lily sees it for the challenge it is. There is the strangest trance of a moment, James leaning in from one side of the table, the lumos making a monster of him. In that moment, Lily wants to tell him the truth. Every inch of it.

And then a door overhead creaks open, and the moment breaks.

“I – you – _please_ ,” she scoffs, and the act is perfect, the disdain so convincing that he reels back, abruptly out of his depth, “ _that's_ what you think is going on? You think I'm that fucked up, that I'd sleep with one of our cousins? For fuck's sake, James. I know you don't think much of me, but that's next level, even for you.”

“I don't,” he says, cast adrift, “what, no, I know—“

“Clearly you know _everything_.” She injects the words with every iota of derision she's capable of. It's a lot. “Everything. Fuck. So it doesn't matter if I tell you, then? That he's been offered a contract for the Appleby Arrows and for the Tutshill Tornadoes, but only if he drops out of school to take them up on it? That he has to choose between a Quidditch career that could make him famous for a century, or staying in school and not breaking his parents' hearts?”

James is mouthing, hand over his chest. Lily knows that what she is doing is wrong. The Louis-and-Lily secret, that's one thing, half hers to spill and share. But this, this is his secret and his secret only, and she is sacrificing it to save the one that involves her. She knows it's wrong. She doesn't hesitate to do it anyway.

“I had no idea,” James manages feebly, and Lily folds her arms.

“Clearly. You—“

And then a new voice says, “Lily.”

She startles half out of her skin. She whirls round, wand whipped into her hand in fright, and an elegant hand comes out of the darkness and pushes it aside. Victoire is stood behind it, blinking furiously in the brightness, face screwed up.

“Were you talking about Louis?”

“I – how much did you hear?”

Victoire squints at her. “From the bit about the contracts. It's true? Both teams?”

Behind Lily, James is trying to slope off. Half of her wants to stay and make him have this conversation with her, but the other half is only glad to see the back of him.

So when the side door swishes open and shut, she sighs and lowers her wand. “It's true. Please, please don't tell him I told you. He'll kill me.”

“How do you know?” Victoire feels her way into a chair, looking shell-shocked. She's got a hand pressed over her belly, like she need to protect the tiny bean of life there from the news. Contempt rises up in Lily and she wrestles it down grimly. She needs to be nice here. Sweet. Convince Victoire not to let on to Louis that she knows.

“I found him half-cut in Hogsmeade three or four months ago and got him back to the castle to sleep it off. He told me then. He's been freaking out.”

“I bet he has. Jesus. Why didn't he come to me?”

Gingerly, Lily sits down too. “He doesn't want anyone to know until he's made the decision.”

“Yeah, but _you_ know.”

Lily shrugs and reaches for the long tangle of her hair, pulls it over her shoulder and starts picking it apart to keep her hands busy.

“I was there. That's the only reason.”

“I thought he would talk to me.” Victoire's mouth is pulled downwards at both corners, eyes pleading. With her red hair pulled up into a messy bun, darkness softening the angular planes of her face, she looks a little bit less like the know-it-all cousin Lily has known all her life, and a little bit more like a nervous twenty-something facing a future suddenly thrown up in the air and shaken. Despite herself, Lily softens.

“I think he thought you'd feel like you had to tell your mum and dad. And he most of all doesn't want them to know.”

Victoire sighs, then to Lily's astonishment reaches out and takes her hand.

“Well, I'm glad he's talking to you, at least. What do you think he'll do?”

Lily keeps her face carefully inscrutable. “I honestly don't know. We haven't talked about it, not really.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It was just like – a one-time thing. When he was pissed. We don't really talk. But, look, Vic – please, please promise me you won't say anything? He made me swear.”

“But I want him to know—“

“Please, Vic.” Lily just looks at her, squeezing her hand, eyes shining. “ _Please_.”

It occurs to her that this might be the first time since she was five that she's asked Victoire for anything. And now she's all but begging, her in the warm, dark kitchen of the Burrow, their whole family asleep above them. Victoire sees it too and hesitates.

“I don't know, Lily. He needs help with this.”

An idea occurs to Lily. “Don't you know one of the guys on the Tutshill team? Urquhart? You could say he mentioned something about it to you?”

Victoire's lips press together. “I don't really like lying to my family.”

Lily laughs before she thinks better of it. “Really? I do it all the time.”

“I know.” There's a little too much weight to Victoire's voice. A little too much behind it.

Pointedly, Lily takes her hand away. Victoire looks at her a moment or two longer, then sighs and tilts her head up towards the ceiling.

“Fine. I'll lie.”

Lily smiles, just barely. That tight, nothing smile that frustrates teachers so much. Victoire's mouth twists.

“Lily—“

“Thanks,” she says, and gets up. “Really. I'm going back to bed.”

Victoire says nothing. So Lily leaves her, taking the light of her wand with her, and pads back up the stairs to her room. When she goes past her brothers' and Hugo's room, the door is open again, the bed full once more. And when she slips back into her own room and eases herself back down onto the squeaky air mattress, she sees the shine of Daisy's eyes in the dark. But Daisy says nothing, so Lily doesn't either. Instead she lies on her back, eyes closed, faking steady breathing, and presses both hands so hard over her stomach she feels like she'll flatten herself into the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two important conversations need to be had. Neither of them are easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in this chapter for: underage drinking, pregnancy, references to drug use.

In that strange, drifting time between Christmas and New Year, Louis comes to Lily's house. She's lost track of what day it, knows only that New Years' – and the epic party at the Selwyns' – is not that night nor the next, and therefore that she doesn't need to start making a plan for how to get there and back yet, or what to wear, or how to deflect the inevitable suspicion when she, Lily Potter, whose alcohol tolerance is legendary, refuses to drink at all.

Christmas went smoother than she'd hoped. She's spent fifteen Christmases not noticing where Louis was at all, so to avoid him for a sixteenth was easy. He spent the days, as far as she could tell, hovering on the fringes, practising Quidditch whenever he could get away with it and looking studiously blank any time their paths crossed. In a family as big as theirs, their carefully orchestrated avoidance wasn't even noticed.

Now she's hopping around her bedroom swearing to herself, exhausted and irritable, trying to do up her favourite pair of jeans. She woke herself up seven times in the night, rolling onto her front and putting way too much weight on overly tender boobs. The tiredness is like an illness inside her, stoking a rising and unfocused anger.

Albus thumps on the wall. “Would you shut the fuck up?”

“ _You_ shut the fuck up!” she shrieks back, shrill and fuming, and arches almost double to force the button into its hole. The success doesn't improve her mood at all; when she straightens up, adjusting her too-tight bra, her black temper is still sitting like a thundercloud in her chest.

“Oh,” says a voice from her doorway, “sorry. I knocked.”

Lily twists instinctively, raising a hand to cover herself, and finds Louis staring determinedly at a spot above her head. Her anger, to her astonishment, soothes a little. Still, the jerk of her chin to invite him in is tight and cross, and she only lowers the volume on her crashing music a little.

“I thought I said this was over?” She reaches for the closest thing to hand and pulls it on, covering the barely there thickening around her waist. It's an old sweater of her dad's, holes in both elbows, and it swamps her completely.

“You did.” Louis closes the door carefully behind himself. “I mean, your dad's downstairs. Obviously I'm not here to—“

“Obviously.” She shoves her feet into her slippers and throws herself down mutinously onto her bed. “So? What are you here for?”

“Well,” he says, and picks his way over the mess of clothes on her floor to perch himself uncomfortably on her windowseat. He looks strange and out-of-place here. Lily doesn't think he's ever been in her room before. He's too tall for it, too big, too much a boy, that strong frame and the powerful lengths of his limbs thrown into even sharper relief than usual. She holds that thought and examines it, trying to work out what the feeling that goes with it is. And then he shifts nervously on her windowseat, and the neck of his jumper exposes a flash of winter-pale collarbone, and Lily realises in a flash of irritation and despair that she's desperately, desperately turned on.

“Fuck,” she says, startling him. “Tell me what it is and get out of here.”

He flushes, red spreading under his freckles, and his jaw works for a second or two before he sets it mulishly and says, “You told Vic about Tutshill and the Arrows.”

 _I lie to my family all the time_ , she'd told Victoire, and her mouth is open to do just that when he cuts her off, bitter.

“Don't say you didn't. She tried to tell me the Tutshill vice captain told her, but – I mean, she's such a bad liar. Even worse than James. It can only have been you. Nobody else who would tell her knows.”

Lily grimaces, looking down. Her hands are very small in her lap.

“I know that you're – that we're... that you don't care about us, me, whatever. I do. But this, Lily? I trusted you with this, and you just—“

“I didn't mean to.” She looks up now, finding his gaze and holding it. “Honest, I didn't. James saw us coming up out of the garden at the Burrow, the way you were looking, and he was saying that he was sure there was something going on. So I said we'd just been talking about Quidditch, about your choice, and – I mean, fuck, it was two o'clock in the morning, I hardly thought Vic would be creeping around outside the kitchen. James would never have told.”

Louis breaks their gaze and turns away, his eyes fixed unseeing on a photo tacked to her wall. Lily grips one wrist very firmly in her opposite hand and says, as viciously as she can, “Sorry. Thought you'd probably rather they knew you were a desperately talented Quidditch player rather than that you were fucking your cousin.”

Louis goes very still for a moment, and then he lets out this strange choked noise and bends forwards, pushing his head into his hands.

“Why did you do this, Lily?” The question is muffled, but it claws at her all the same.

“I,” she starts, floundering, but then finds her feet and pushes back. “This isn't all me, alright? You said – since the summer, you said, that's when you started...”

“Yeah, but—“ he lifts his head, blue eyes bloodshot, the fine planes of his face creased and tired, looking ten years older than he has a right to look, “—that was just something for me to deal with. And I was, fuck, I was dealing with it, okay? Getting over it, because I knew it was nothing, had to be nothing. And then you came in, you got in the shower, you came to the pitch, and...”

Lily's sure her own cheeks are burning, now, but she only lifts her chin higher.

“You let me.”

“Of course I let you. I've had that exact dream a hundred times since August. And you – there's not a guy on this planet that could say no to you, Lily.”

“That is categorically, empirically untrue.”

He sighs. “Fine. Maybe it's just me who can't say no to you.”

“I,” Lily starts, but she has no idea where she's going with it. She trails off and just sits there, looking at her knees, picking at the fashionable rips in her jeans with trembling fingers.

“Oh, god,” says Louis, suddenly alarmed. “Don't cry, I didn't mean—“

“I'm _not_ ,” Lily heaves out, but then finds that she is. Furious with herself, she lifts a hand to her cheek and smears the tears away. “Fuck. No, sit down.”

He does, halfway off the windowseat but settling back down at her sharp tone, caught between hurt and anger.

“I am not crying at this,” she manages to get out, almost clearly, “I know you think it of me, but I'm honestly not that manipulative. At least, not with you. I just – I don't mean to be crying.”

He's just watching her, face creased open with worry, and then he's startling backwards as the door springs open.

“Lily, turn that fucking—“ shouts Albus, and then steps backwards, eyes going from Louis to Lily, weeping on the bed. “What the fuck?”

“Fuck _off_ , Albus,” Lily screams, seizing the outlet for her temper so perfectly presented, rounding on him so fast he backs out into the hallway, her face thrust up into his. “Fucking, fucking hell! How many fucking times do I have to tell you to just—“

“That language had better stop _this instant_ ,” her dad thunders, taking the stairs two at a time, “what on Earth is – oh, for god's sake, what's going on?”

“Lily's been so bloody loud all morning, and now she's—“ yells Albus as Lily plants both feet and shrieks, “—he thinks he can just _barge in_ whenever he likes and—“

“Enough!”

Their dad's shout is enough to stop them both dead. He takes a very deep breath and says, more calmly, “I am not having a single additional conversation with you two about working your issues out like adults. We have been here before.”

Lily slides a glance sideways and finds Albus sliding one right back, both of them still puffed up with indignation, and she's opening her mouth when he gets there first.

“She's been in a shitty mood since before Christmas, Dad, and I just don't think it's fair she takes her PMS out on me.”

“ _Albus_ ,” says their dad severely, but it's too late, Lily's short-circuited from fury.

“At least I wasn't off my face the whole time we were at the Burrow,” she shrieks, whirling on Albus, jabbing a finger at him, ignoring the pain as he swipes at it, looking murderous, his expression telling her she'd better shut up or he'll make her shut up.

“Is this true?” Their dad pushes his glasses back up his nose, and for just a second, guilt for the despair on his face makes Lily second-guess herself. But then Albus is muttering something about PMS again, expression livid, and Lily goes blank with rage.

“Course it is, everyone could see it,” she spits, “and that's why he slept with Daisy, he only does it when he's drunk or high, even though she should know not to, even though—“

Albus swings at her so fast only instinct has her moving aside in time. Their dad jumps forward, but someone else gets there first.

“Come on, man,” says Louis, one big hand closing around Lily's arm and pulling her firmly behind him, other palm extended in peace, “she's your sister.”

Albus swings again, wild with the same rage that had Lily shouting, ignoring their dad's furious warning to stop, and Louis takes the punch on his shoulder without even flinching. It wasn't hard, Lily knows that, because Albus swipes at her all the time and never means to really hurt, but it still means something, that Louis put himself between it and her.

“She didn't mean it,” Louis is saying placatingly. The calm on his face is belied by the iron grip he still has on Lily, holding her firmly back as she tries to step forward and defend herself. “We know you weren't high, don't worry.”

Lily scoffs and he squeezes her arm, hard enough to shut her up. Her dad has stepped up beside her, warning them both.

Louis says, still soothing, “We were all drunk, come on mate, did you see how much alcohol Uncle Ron put in the eggnog? I practically passed out on Fred on Christmas Eve.”

“I'm going to kill her the second you leave,” Albus threatens darkly, but his fists are loosening, posture slackening. “Why are you even here, anyway?”

“Vic asked me to come.” The lie comes out of him so smoothly Lily's impressed despite herself. “She forgot to bring part of Lily's present to the Burrow so she asked me to drop it off for her.”

“Couldn't have come herself?” Albus demands, and Lily at last steps out from behind Louis a little and sniffs, sticking her nose in the air.

“Ignore him, he's just annoyed you foiled his attempts at sororicide.”

“I—“ says Albus, genuinely surprised, “what does that even mean?”

Louis and her dad are both looking at her too, astonished, and Lily feels a ridiculous bubble of mirth in her stomach.

“The killing of one's sister. I looked it up when I was seven.”

“You—“ starts Albus, but their dad just laughs and steps forward, inserting himself neatly between his children.

“Come on, Al, come downstairs. I promised your mother I'd get dinner prepped before she gets back. Plenty of time to calm down.”

“Make Lily help,” he mutters darkly, but their dad isn't having any of it.

“She's helped two nights in a row, it is beyond your turn. Get moving. Louis, are you staying for dinner?”

Louis blinks, surprised to be asked. His gaze dives down to Lily, and at last he seems to realise he's still holding her. He lets her go, perhaps a little too hastily, because her dad's eyes narrow just slightly behind his glasses.

“Um, thanks, but I'd better get back soon, actually. Vic's at a pre-natal appointment, that's why she asked me to come. She'll want to give us all the updates.”

“Right.” Her dad takes Albus by the shoulder, starts guiding him gently but firmly down the stairs. “Come say bye before you go, alright?”

“I will,” Louis promises, and he waits until the sound of them opening cupboards in the kitchens floats up before he lets out a breath and turns to Lily at last. She tilts her head, drifts back into her bedroom. He's walking close behind her, close enough that if she stopped and leaned back just a little, her shoulder blades would press into the hard planes of his chest.

“Does he hit you, Lily?”

She flops onto her bed and frowns. “What, Albus? 'Course. Same as I hit him.”

“Yeah, but you're a girl.”

“A sister.” She shrugs. “And I'd much rather take a hair pull or a smack than one of those awful hexes Dom taught him before she learned better.”

Louis hesitates, standing in front of her, gazing down thoughtfully.

“Well, will you call me, if you ever need to? If he—“

“It's not like that,” says Lily, and folds her arms over her stomach. “So, is Vic actually at a pre-natal appointment?”

He nods, still frowning. “Yeah. She texted.”

“What will you say if she finds out you used her to cover?”

“I'll tell her I came to talk to you about Quidditch and didn't want Uncle Harry or Al to know.”

“Fair.”

Lily wonders how long it will be before she needs to go to Healer. She probably should have gone already, but all they'll do is confirm what she already knows. She doesn't think it's worth the risk. She can _feel_ the foetus inside her, eating away at her energy. Seeing a Healer means making a decision, anyway, and she can't do that yet. Can't even admit, truly, that this means what it means.

Silence builds, thick and full of expectation. Louis is still standing there in front of her, gazing at her so miserably, she thinks it might just kill her.

“God,” she says, “stop looking at me like that.”

He turns away immediately. “Sorry.”

“No, I just...”

He angles his head back, expression studiously blank. God, but he's beautiful there in the patch of winter sunlight, that jawline and the heat in his eyes as he stares at her.

“You were wrong.” It bursts out of her. “Before, I mean, when I said I didn't care about you. Us. I – honestly? I do care. I really do.”

His hands clench into fists. “So?”

“So?” She stands up, pressing forwards, crowding into his space. “So there it is. I care. You, the way I feel when I'm with you, that's important to me. But—“

He blows out a breath. “But,” he says, so sadly, and his hands come up to anchor on her hips.

“But it's not important enough to blow our whole lives on it,” she says, chin tilted, defiant, “you know it's not. This is a thing we will both feel about somebody else. Lots of somebodies, probably. But we've only got one family. You've only got one reputation. This gets out, we destroy them both. And this isn't worth that.”

He sighs, draws her in close, hands sliding from her hips to her waist, pressing her into him as tight as he can. Into her hair, so quietly, he says, “It's worth it to me.”

Lily grits her teeth. “That's why I'm deciding. Not you.”

“Shouldn't it be something we decide together?”

She pulls her head back, stares up at him, face challenging. “Right. You want to go by yourself to tell your parents you're sleeping with me, or shall I come with you? How will Grandma take it, d'you think? Excitement, that her grandkids are getting together? She'll have great-grandchildren twice over. 'Course, first cousin marriages so rarely have problems with kids, that's why—“

“Lily, stop it.” He wraps his arms around her shoulders, trapping her against him. “I know all the reasons we can't. I do. But, god, when you're near me I can't make any of them matter.”

“You'll get over it,” she promises him, even as her own traitorous heart clenches hard in her chest. “You will. I swear.”

“And you know everything, huh.” He says it sadly, not nastily, and Lily can only press her fists into the small of his back.

When he draws back, he looks desolate. “I should go.”

“Yeah.” Lily wipes an arm across her eyes. “You probably should.”

“I think maybe... I think I shouldn't see you for a while. If that's okay.”

Her chest constricts but she rides the pain out. This was only ever a means to an end, she reminds herself, only ever supposed to be a short thing until she had the baby she needed. What else, after all, could it ever have been?

“Fine.” She steps away and wraps her arms around herself. “Don't forget to say bye to Dad and Al.”

“I won't.”

He just stands there for a moment, looking at her in a way that makes her feel at once tiny and magnificent, like she could give him everything, everything, if she only tried. And then he sighs and turns away, shadows falling over his face, his forearms tense and hard where he's pushed his sweater sleeves up. He doesn't say anything else. He slides out of the room and, a second later, Lily hears his footsteps disappearing down the stairs and the low throb of his conversation with her father and brother.

She goes over to her window to wait. Sure enough, he appears shortly afterwards, shrugging his coat on. The wind takes his hair, lifting the red-gold curls and blowing them into his eyes.

Lily watches him until he Disapparates. He doesn't look back at the house once.

  
  


-x-

  
  


The Selwyns' towering London townhouse is pulsating with noise. Lily steps past the wards and it hits her like a wall, an inferno of music and shouts and laughter. All five Selwyn children have invited as many people as they could get their hands on, and already people are spilling out into the magically enlarged garden and the upper rooms of the house, visible as silhouettes against expensive cream curtains.

Lily takes a deep breath. She really doesn't want to be here. But she's Lily Potter, after all. Where else would she be on New Years' Eve? She had her first alcoholic drink here aged 13. Her first kiss here at 14. It's a ritual, the place she comes to slough off her old self and decide who she's going to be for the next year. Come midnight, she's going to be swinging from that chandelier. Just watch her.

Winnie's middle sister catches her coming through the door, way past drunk already, the crystals on her phone case sparkling between her fingers.

“Lily! So glad you came! C'mere,” and she pulls Lily close, snaps a selfie of them before Lily can do much more than blink.

“Better tag me in that,” Lily makes her promise. Georgiana laughs, airy, and taps away at her screen. Lily's own phone buzzes seconds later in the magically hidden pocket of her dress, and she slides it out to find the Instagram notification winking up at her.

“I gotchu, girl.” Gee bops her on the nose, which Lily would take deeper offence at if Gee hadn't been using her to boost her Instagram following since the first summer Lily came to the Selwyns' house with Winnie. It's just part of being here now, like skinny dipping in the underground pool or sneaking bottles of out Winnie's mother's antique drinks cabinet or sunbathing on the roof terrace with no tops on.

The hidden wizarding pocket of Instagram is growing by the day, and Lily would be lying if she said she didn't love the buzz that a rush of likes gives her, the strange and fleeting satisfaction of posting a picture of her face or her outfit and having four hundred people tell her she looks great. Anybody who says that wouldn't feel good is a liar.

She wants to ask Gee how it's going for her, this determination to make a living off the app like so many Muggles do, but she doesn't need to ask. It's obvious from the HD fade of her brows, the artfully tousled haircut, the curve of lips artificially plumped by a charm Lily needs to get the name of.

“Oh, Andy!” calls Gee, and launches herself past Lily at a boy coming in behind her. Lily sighs and shoots a quick text to the girls. A response pings in seconds later from Parks, _In the ballroom_ , and so Lily hangs a left through the arching marble entrance hall and presses into the seething mass of people on the dance floor.

She stops at the bar for a drink, determined to get one in before Parks can press anything alcoholic on her. The plan is to keep the baby, right? That's the plan. To let it grow and then give it away to someone who'd do anything for a kid. So if she's making it for bad reasons, selfish ones, it's only fair she does right by it. A kind of apology, for bringing it into the world the way she is.

The bartender is young, pretty. She smiles too long at Lily and Lily just stares back, stone-faced. She extends her arm and the bartender presses an Age Detector to her wrist, just above her pulse point, and frowns as it flashes up red.

“Sorry, Lily,” says the girl, who knows her name of course, “you know I can't serve you—“

“I've done this before.” Lily drops her wrist. “I'll have a lemonade, please.”

Drink in hand, she forges back into the crowd, pushing through the sweaty masses, avoiding exuberant elbows and half-gone couples already grinding into one another. Her dress keeps getting caught between people, pushing her off-balance. It's why she usually wears tight dresses, things that cling, but her friends know her too well not to spot the almost-imperceptible rounding at her middle, the new size of her chest. To most people, it would be nothing at all. But they've lived inside each other's pockets these last five years, and in just the same way Lily would see it on any of them in an instant.

She will tell them, obviously. She will. Just not yet.

Someone paws at her waist, hands searching, and Lily turns around with her wand out. Underage she might be, but there's so many overage witches and wizards here the Trace will never spot one little hex under all the magic.

Wes Bones is standing there behind her, shit-eating grin ready, the heavy fall of his bronze hair swept artfully to one side and his green eyes thick with lust.

“There's something I want to finish with you, Potter,” he yells over the pounding baseline. Lily lets herself sway into him for a moment. Her mind races. If she slept with him tonight, would it work? Is it early enough to get away with, to tell everyone he's the father?

“You look hot.” It comes out loud in her inner ear, his breath warm and wet there. For a split second, she hesitates. But then she thinks of the way Louis presses his forehead into the ground or the cushion beside her head, the way he says her name on a sigh, blissed out and awed. She imagines taking Wes' hand, letting him lead her up to one of the bedrooms here, and her stomach turns.

“Maybe later,” she shouts back, slipping carefully out of his reach. He calls after her, but she's already gone, disappearing back into the safety of the crowd.

Her phone buzzes again and she pulls it out, bracing herself against the crush of dancers. The music is pounding into her head, and as she tries to read, some idiot catches her hair in the crook of their arm and yanks her head backwards. She shoves them off as hard as she can, spitting with rage, and their girlfriend wraps their arms around them and shoots daggers at her.

“Arsehole,” says Lily, with deep feeling, and carefully coils her hair up and pulls it safely over her shoulder. She should have known better than to wear it down. The Selwyns' party is always insane.

The text is from Parks, _see u bitch come over by the choc fountain xxx_

She pummels her way through the thinning edges of the crowd and emerges on the far side of the ballroom. Towering windows open onto the Selwyns' elegant backyard, so perfectly landscaped, and Lily enjoys the frigid lick of the winter air as she follows the line of windows to the buffet table and the promised chocolate fountain.

Winnie spots her first, on her tiptoes on a chair, and squeals in delight. Ophelia, Parks and Clary are with her, and they all throw themselves on Lily with yells of joy.

“I saw you losers like two weeks ago,” she says with a laugh, and detaches herself to hug Orion and Ellery, who are following along behind. “Are the others here yet?”

“Yell can't come, remember? And Beth's on her way. So's Euan.” Ophelia is already at work, smoothing down Lily's hair, running her fingers through the tangle where that idiot caught at it.

“Right.” Lily lets her finish and then blows her a kiss, already relaxing now she's surrounded by her friends again. “So, go on, update me on your Christmases.”

“Maybe if you'd been texting back properly,” says Parks, teasing, and Lily pretends to punch her.

“I've been doing family stuff, idiot. Not all of us live on our phones.”

“Only child privileges,” retorts Parks with a laugh. “Now, you _have_ to hear what Fee's awful brother got her.”

They drag her out across the courtyard, chattering away, updating her on their lives as they hurry through the cold and into one of the Selwyns' many lounges, set up now to let people flop down and chat.

Once they're all huddled round, Clary pulls out a silver hip flask and tilts it so it catches the low lights. “Anyone?”

“God, yes,” say Orion and Ophelia at the same time, and hold their cups out, laughing.

Lily came prepared for this. She takes a swig from her cup and whispers, “Got it covered.”

“Brought your own?” Parks jumps up and pretends to grab at her pockets. “Share, then, go on.”

“Gerroff.” Lily fends her off, laughing. “No way. Fancy Christmas present from my uncle, I'm not sharing with anyone.”

“Ooh, the dragon-wrangling uncle?” Ophelia tilts her head their way. Her dark, glossy curls slip becomingly over her face, and out of the corner of her eye Lily sees Ellery watching her, his gaze a little hazy. Well. That's new.

“Indeed,” she says, before anybody else notices Ellery, “Uncle Charlie. Special stuff, all the way from Russia. But don't tell anyone, 'cause obviously my parents will throw an absolute fit if they know he's giving us alcohol.”

“Us?”

“Yeah, Hugo got some too. Is he here?”

They all turn to Winnie and she shrugs, spreading her hands wide. “I invited all the Gryffindor boys. Don't know if they're planning on it.”

“Well, guess we'll find out eventually,” says Orion, and glances down at his phone. “Euan just got here. Let's dance, yeah?”

And so they do, Euan crashing into them with a roar of relief, grabbing at them all and making them promise not to leave him alone with his family for too long ever again. He hugs Lily last, long and slow, and then squeezes her head so tightly she has to pinch him on the waist. He reels back, laughing, and twirls her, full of fun and alcohol and freedom. And then they plunge into the party, raucous, yelling, high on excitement and each other and their certainty in their own place at the very top of the world.

Just before midnight, Winnie sidles up to Lily and whispers, “Do you think I should try to kiss Orion?”

Lily looks over at him, his eyes unfocused, his shirt half-open, dancing so sloppily with a girl it makes Lily embarrassed for him. She winds her arm around Winnie's shoulders. “No, my love. Come on. Let's go watch from your balcony instead.”

Euan follows them up, stumbling slightly on the top step, and Lily ends up having to brace herself between the two of them, both of them drunk enough to start singing as they reel across the top floor landing.

“So, which one of you ladies wants a midnight snog?” Euan demands as they slide through Winnie's bedroom – charmed to open only for her tonight – and over her luxurious white carpet to the magically warmed balcony. They both laugh at him. He pretends briefly to be offended, and then starts laughing too.

“Should never have followed you losers up here. I could have my hand down Sarah Whitman's trousers right now.”

“Disgusting,” Lily tells him, and flicks his ear as they tumble pell-mell onto the butter-soft couch, bracketed between tropical plants kept alive by the carefully designed spells placed on the two-metre width of the balcony. From here, London stretches out around them, rooftops glistening in the light of a low full moon, a few overeager fireworks already jetting up in the distance and washing the sky in bright colours.

Winnie digs around until she finds a remote for the TV encased behind glass against the wall, and switches it on so they can listen to the countdown. At midnight, Lily puts her arms around both of them and brings them in close, ignoring their squawks, and plants one big kiss on either of their cheeks.

“Love you losers,” she tells them, and as soon as she's fought free Winnie kisses both their cheeks too, laughing. They both turn and look expectantly at Euan until he rolls his eyes, and then they present their faces for him to kiss dutifully in turn.

“Could have been getting a snog off—“ he starts, and Lily pushes him off the couch.

They watch the city until the fireworks fade and die. Winnie has her head on Lily's shoulder, the jasmine scent of her blonde hair a pleasant counterpoint to the rancid stench of beer and sweat wafting out of the house. Lily finds herself absorbed in the distant buzz of London partying, the beautiful aliveness of it, the sprawling endlessness of the people and the lights and the noise. Her brothers are out there somewhere, no doubt, James paid to show up at this club or that and Albus probably hanging around with Scorpius Malfoy at some dodgy house party, the pair of them with pupils blown wide and a girl on each arm.

“I'm going to find the others,” Winnie says suddenly, and struggles out from under Lily's arm. By others, she means Orion, but Lily lets her go anyway. It'll hurt, but she thinks it's time Winnie sees that Orion will never like her that way. That she could do a whole lot better.

Euan heaves out a great sigh and slides sideways, pushing off his dress shoes and kicking his bare feet up onto the couch, letting his head fall into her lap. Lily lets him, softened by the late hour and the festivities, the joy of a whole night thinking only about herself and her friends.

And then Euan lifts a hand and, so carefully, presses it against her stomach. “You going to talk to me about this, then?”

Lily shrinks away from his hand. But he follows, spreading his fingers, his palm cemented over the nothing-swell of the baby.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she says, but it's too breathy. He's caught her off-guard, the way he's so good at doing. She doubles down, “Alcohol is really getting to you, huh?”

“Christmas Eve morning,” he tells her, taking his hand away. He still hasn't opened his eyes. He looks the very picture of peace, the warm heavy weight of his head against her thighs, the scent of his aftershave thick in her nostrils. “I walked in on you and Lucy getting changed by accident, remember?”

“ _By accident_ ,” she repeats scornfully, as though he hasn't been attempting to engineer ways to see her cousins without clothes for the last three years running.

“Well,” he continues blithely, “I did. And I consider myself quite the connoisseur of women's figures, you know.”

“You are _so_ gross.”

“Give it up. We spent most of last summer in swimwear. Your boobs have definitely grown.”

“It happens. Puberty's a thing. Does not mean I'm pregnant.”

He opens his eyes now. He meets her gaze steadily. With the fingers of one hand, he begins to tick off facts, each one making Lily's stomach sink further.

“You're eating way more than usual, even for you. You're not talking to us all as much as usual. Your tits are – well, to be frank, they're looking killer.” That earns him a swipe, but he doesn't stop. “You haven't been drinking all night, no matter how much you've been pretending to slip alcohol into that drink. You wanted to get pregnant. You've been sleeping with—“ even he breaks off at that, and his eyes flash away, just for a moment, “well. You've been having sex. So.”

“I have been drinking,” she protests weakly, but he just snorts.

“The hip flask? Yeah, right. I was standing behind you when you poured it in, remember? First time I've ever seen alcohol that smells of absolutely nothing.”

“I'm not pregnant.”

“Lily.” He says her name very gently. It's that that gets her, in the end. Euan is never gentle. Quiet, sometimes, but tender, never. It settles right down deep inside her and suddenly those tears are rising again, the same ones that came for her when Louis came to her house, spilling over and threatening to ruin the smokey eye that took her an hour to get right.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” she says, and looks skywards, blinking furiously. “Fuck you, Longbottom. It's none of your goddamn business.”

He reels upright, spinning to face her, taking both her wrists in his hands. “Stop being a bitch for two seconds. I'm telling you I know because I want to help.”

“Yeah?” It comes out of her thick and snotty. “How?”

“We'll say it's mine.”

It takes Lily a few seconds to get her head around that. “How drunk _are_ you?”

“Not as drunk as you think. And I'm serious, anyway. I'd say it sober, I just haven't seen you alone yet, and it felt weird to offer on the phone.”

“I don't – I can't – Euan. The whole point of... well, of who it is, it was because I wanted people to know. I wanted to show my family, show them that they don't know me, they have no idea what I'm capable of. That was the point of it. For it to be – him.”

“Yeah.” Euan lets her wrists go and sits back, easing his shoulders against the arm of the couch. “And then something happened to change your mind.”

“Did you take up legilimency when we weren't looking?”

He makes a _psh_ sound, kicks at her bare leg with a socked foot. “Naw. But you have changed your mind. You must've, or you would've told us all by now. Well, not me and El and Orion, maybe. But the girls, for sure.”

She lifts her chin. “How d'you know I haven't?”

He just looks at her, eyebrows raised. Lily holds his gaze for as long as she can bear, and then her eyes dive aside. Red is spreading up her chest and neck, flooding her cheeks.

“God, I hate you.”

“I know. So d'you want to? Tell people it's mine?”

Lily sighs. It's a bone-deep sigh, wrenched out from her gut. “I don't know. I – your parents. With the divorce and everything, this will crush them. You know it will.”

“This may surprise you,” he says dryly, “but I'm pretty sure getting someone pregnant is exactly the sort of thing they expect me to do.”

“I can't do that to you.” Lily reaches out and thumbs over the back of his hand. “I mean – I fucking love you, man.” He grins, and she digs her nails in, ignoring his hiss. “You know what I mean. I've known you longer than anyone, and I just – if it was actually yours, fine, you bet I'd be hauling you up there with me. But this? When it's... someone else's? I can't do that.”

“Why not? You're giving it up anyway, right?”

“It's with us forever, you know. This will be news. Even if I were trying to hide it, if it were a big accident, it would be news. It'll be everywhere. Future jobs, future girlfriends, your family, my family – any time we meet anyone new or catch up with old friends it'll be there, unspoken. And it might come back, in the future, the kid might want to know us. You'll have a life, real actual kids of your own, and this would just get dropped in the middle of that. It'd be a nightmare.”

“Being a teenage parent is not that bad a thing.”

“But,” says Lily desperately, trying to make him understand, “but it's huge. Life-changing. And that's the point of it, for me. But you never wanted it, and you didn't even have anything to do with it. I won't do this to you.”

“Lily.” He takes her hand, squeezes her fingers. “I know you're not asking me to. But I'm still offering.”

“I can't,” she says, abruptly close to tears again, chest heaving, “I can't do this to you.”

“You can't just cry on me to win an argument. Dick move.”

“I'm not.”

“You are.” But he pulls her sideways into a hug anyway, half-crushing her. This has been one of the few constants in Lily's life – Euan's earthy, ashy scent, the solid strength of his arms and chest, the familiar rise and fall of his breathing. The earliest picture her mother has of the two of them is Euan aged three months and Lily two, dressed in matching sunflower costumes, holding each other by the pinky.

“Think about it,” he says into the top of her head. “And that's not a request. Think about it.”

“I,” she starts, but he just squeezes her tighter, and then tighter again, until she's laughing as much as she's crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time spent with her family puts Lily in a precarious situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings this chapter for: pregnancy, references to sex between first cousins, references to underage drinking.

Lily wakes up in the morning still on the couch. Euan's shoulder is inches from her face. She sits up, groggy, lost for a moment. Euan's still out of it, passed out as thoroughly as he was last night. She'd lain down, just for a minute, just to let her puffy eyes calm down so she could go and rejoin their other friends. And now it's morning, a dirty sun rising into a disapproving sky. She's the same self she was yesterday and it makes her itch, the New Year's ritual disrupted.

She blinks and reaches for her discarded phone. 8am. Earlier than anyone else will be up, based on the amount of alcohol going around last night. But her stomach gives a pernicious rumble and she eases a hand across it without thinking.

“Alright,” she tells it quietly, and pushes to her feet. She leaves Euan there, snoring slightly, and pads up the balcony, the wooden boards warm beneath her bare feet. The curtains are drawn, but Winnie hasn't locked the doors. Probably got too drunk to remember they'd gone out there in the first place.

Lily eases a door open quietly and slips through. She's expecting that several of her friends will be piled up inside, passed out, and perhaps even a few strangers.

What she is not expecting is to find Winnie sitting up in bed, eyes wide, expensive white duvet pulled up to her chin, staring down in what looks like utter shock at the person asleep beside her, his head turned away on the pillow, one freckled arm crooked above his red curls.

Lily stops on the other side of the room. Winnie's gaze darts up, hunted, and her face contracts when she realises who's there. She opens her mouth and Lily raises a hasty finger to her lips. She recognises a freak-out in the offing, and it's best not done here.

With a tilt of her head, she beckons Winnie out of bed. As her friend tries to slide out without disturbing him, Lily hurries across the room on silent feet. She pauses only to scoop a sweater and a pair of shorts off the floor so she can change out of her dress. A flash of white catches her eye and she glances around at Winnie. She's just standing staring at the bed, eyes still so wide, making an extremely half-hearted effort to cover up her nudity. Lily reaches out, tender as she's ever been, and wraps a dressing gown she unearthed from an armchair around her.

As she does, the boy rolls over. Lily's eyes almost pop out of her head, but she just about manages to hide it long enough to shoo Winnie out onto the landing and shut the door behind her.

“Oh my god,” Winnie whispers to her, shaking slightly, “oh my _god_.”

Lily reaches out and takes her by the shoulders. “Would you like to explain what the _fuck_ you're doing naked in bed with my cousin Hugo? What happened to finding Orion?”

Winnie tightens the belt of her dressing gown defensively. Her fierce make-up from the night before is messy and smudged all over. Underneath it, she looks very young.

“I don't—“ The wobbling lower lip is back. With a sigh, Lily turns her and steers her towards her opulent bathroom she's had to herself since her older sister Alcyone moved out. Once they're in, Lily sits her down in the velvet armchair and starts the taps running. This room is as ridiculous as the rest of the house, all gilt gold and white marble, the tub shaped like an honest-to-god seashell. They used to spend hours in here as giggly pre-teens, going through Alcyone's make-up and making themselves look so trampy Winnie's father eventually put a wash-away charm on the staircase so they couldn't get down without losing it all.

“Talk me through it,” she says, slapping a flannel into the hot water and then wringing it out, turning towards her friend. “Start from when you went back downstairs after midnight.”

“I was looking for Orion.” She's talking so quietly. But she keeps talking, even when Lily presses the hot flannel to her face, smearing the black and green away. “I got down to the ballroom and I couldn't see him. But I saw his brother, Cepheus, he was in a corner with Gee. So I asked them if he'd seen him, and they said—“ she gulps, and Lily takes the flannel away to rewet it, revealing those wide blue eyes, “—they said they'd seen him going upstairs with that Gryffindor in sixth year with the huge boobs.”

“Oh, Win.” Lily scrubs the last of her mascara away and drops the flannel back into the sink, then presses her thumbs against the tears spilling over. “I'm sorry. But I mean, if he's going to fuck someone called Aspyn — _Aspyn_ — then you're so much too good for him it _hurts_.”

“Aspyn's a much better name than Sophie.”

“It's a fucking tree, Win. And not even spelled right.”

That gets her just the tiniest hint of a smile. Lily makes the most of it, giving her face another wash, and then reaching for one of the row of expensive serums lined up below the mirror.

“Okay. What happened after that?”

“Well, I was crying, obviously.”

“Obviously.” Lily squeezes a few drops of something promising _radiance, brightening and glow_ onto her palms. Winnie turns her face upwards, pliant and obedient as a lamb.

As Lily smoothes the serum over her face, Winnie says, “So I went out into the garden to be by myself, because I couldn't find any of you guys. And I was just sat on this bench, and then he – your cousin came over, he sat down.”

Lily swipes the serum down under her chin and crooks an eyebrow to encourage her to continue.

“And he was – Lily, he was so _nice_. I never knew that about him before. He was nice and funny, and he was telling me how he'd ended up all by himself because he'd come with four friends and two of them had snuck off to bed together, one of them had a curfew, and the other was being an idiot on the dance floor. So he said would I mind if he hung out with me, just for a bit.”

“And you said of course not,” Lily fills in, trying to hide her smile, rubbing her palms together and then reaching for the moisturiser. “Because you are far too nice of a person to be a real Slytherin.”

“Am not,” she says indignantly, but then she's smiling again, this secret pleased little smile that makes Lily envy her deeply and absolutely. “So anyway, we were talking and talking and talking, and I didn't even realise how long we'd been there. And then people came out into the garden who were really drunk, and I just – I don't know. I said we should go upstairs, it was quieter up there. And then he was sat on my bed, and I just, I suddenly realised that he was, like, hot? I mean, where did that come from? His jaw's all square and... anyway. I don't know how it happened but I sort of... kissed him. A lot.”

Lily is working moisturiser into the rise of her cheekbones, the fairy-dainty swoop of her nose, and she's trying to find the protectiveness she's sure she should feel, about Winnie or Hugo or both of them, but she discovers that mostly she's just feeling the faintest bubbling of happiness, the unexpected rightness of the two of them clicking together. Hugo with his good manners and his earnest desire to right by others and Winnie with her secret shyness, her hidden desire just to love and be loved without needing to be anything more than she is.

“You want me to scrounge up a morning after potion?”

“Oh, oh no.” Winnie blushes so abruptly and so deeply it shows through her hair. “We didn't – he just, I mean.” She swallows, hard, and her eyes dive down, and she whispers, “He just, you know, put his mouth. Um. There.”

Lily's heart swells with love for her, with envy of this first gentle foray, sweet and new, so different from anything she's ever had or done (except with Louis, she tells herself not to think, except with him).

“I'm chuffed for you, Win. For real. I mean, gross, that's my cousin, but – you liked it?”

“Yeah.” She's still blushing so deeply Lily can feel the heat of it beneath her fingers. “I liked it a lot. I just, this morning, waking up and remembering, it felt – I don't know. So new I didn't know what to do with it.”

“Do you think you might do it again?” She pulls her hands away at last and Winnie looks up at her, eyes wide.

“I don't... I mean, he won't want to, will he? It was just – he was drunk, and I mean, you know, it's me.”

“Excuse you.” Lily screws the top back on the moisturiser and squishes herself into the armchair with her, wrapping both arms tight around her shoulders, narrow inside the thick dressing gown, the pep talk already on the tip of her tongue, as prepared as any of her friends would be to talk each other up to heaven and beyond. “Win. You are perfect. I mean it. There's not a guy in the _world_ who's good enough for you. I mean, look at you! Morning after a heavy night, no make-up, and you're still pretty like an angel. And you're so generous, and thoughtful, and you always worry about everybody else before yourself, which is what makes you a bad Slytherin but a very good friend. And you – look, it's lame, but you've got a pure fucking heart, alright? So, yeah. It's you. He'd be lucky if you looked at him again.”

Someone clears their throat in the doorway and they both startle, Winnie's shoulder crammed back hard against Lily's chest. Hugo is standing there, hair ruffled, face crumpled, squinting slightly. Lily gives him her sternest look and he swallows, the dry click audible.

“I just,” he says, “sorry. I got here for the beginning of the pep talk. I – she's right.” He turns his gaze squarely on Winnie, who's pushed back against Lily, lips parted. “I would be lucky if you looked at me again. I think... I think you're one of the prettiest girls I've ever seen, Sophie.”

When Winnie seems too overwhelmed to say anything, Lily arches an eyebrow. She can't resist it, teasing Hugo. She hasn't done it in years, at least not fondly, but she used to do it before Hogwarts all the time just to watch him go red under his freckles and stumble over his words.

“What, you just like her because she's pretty? Way to objectify her.”

“No, no,” he says hastily, so earnest it damn near kills her, so much more grown up than that little boy who used to throw cushions at her because he couldn't find the words to bite back, “I mean, talking to her. To you! Talking to you, Soph, it was – I just really liked it. We don't have to, I mean, if you don't want to, you know, go on a date, or anything, that's fine. But I'd really like to talk to you more.”

So quietly Lily almost can't hear her, Winnie whispers, “I'd like to go on a date.”

A laugh erupts out of Lily so loud it makes them all jump, including her. But then she's hustling Winnie up out of the chair, pushing her towards Hugo, ignoring the shy way they move around each other.

“Go on,” she says, bubbling with joy, “go and organise your date, then.”

“Um,” says Winnie, but she's smiling too, unable to help herself, “okay. Uh, Lily, we moved the towels, they're in the back cupboard now.”

“Got it.” Lily pushes her firmly out of the door and starts to close it behind her. “Oh! Don't forget to lock the balcony door before you do anything. Euan's still out there.”

They both go red as bricks and Lily laughs again, bright and high, and shuts the door in their faces.

Unexpectedly singing with it, the delight of two genuinely decent people discovering each other banishing for the moment all her own problems, Lily locks the door and shimmies out of last night's dress. She doesn't have to ask Winnie whether she can borrow anything; it's freely given, the same way she would share any of her belongings with any of friends without a word needed.

She takes her make-up off and then steps beneath a scalding shower, sluicing the party away. An elderberry shampoo gets out the beer-and-cigarettes smell that always clings to her following a big night, and she lathers up twice for luck.

With the conditioner worked in, she stands for a minute, letting it seep into her hair. As she does, she looks down. By her best estimates, she's nearly nine weeks pregnant. It's almost nothing. Whatever's in there, it's just cells clumping together, just enough to round her out in a way she's not even sure she's seeing in the mirror.

Her hands glide down. She anchors them there, where Euan stretched his palm eight hours before. And she asks herself if she wants to take him up on the offer. She's never hesitated over a decision before. She takes the choice and stays the course, hard and true. But this time. This time it feels like so much more to lose.

By the time the conditioner is rinsed out and she's smoothing serum and moisturiser onto her face, she still doesn't have an answer.

-x-

Four days before Lily and Al are due back at school, Teddy is round at the Potter house for dinner. Their mother has managed to unearth James from somewhere, and he's hunched over his plate, shovelling bolognese into his mouth like he's afraid of what he'll say if his mouth stays empty for too long.

Lily's watching him, feeling faintly nauseous, pushing her spaghetti around her plate.

Teddy nudges her with no hint of subtlety at all. “What d'you reckon then, Lily, is it true what the rumours are saying? Is James in _luuuuurve_?”

James' gaze darts up, poisonous. Lily just stares back at him, blank, as her parents roll their eyes and make some ineffectual noises about not listening to the gossip.

“Maybe,” she says, shrugging a shoulder, “I'd be surprised, though. You, on the other hand—“

Teddy does a full-body twist in the chair to face her. “Me?”

“You.” Lily pushes a mouthful of spaghetti in, chews past the sick feeling, swallows. Everyone's looking at her. “I mean, you are aware that we all know you've got it bad for Young Molly?”

Lily's mother covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes glittering. Teddy puffs himself up, for once looking his full six feet and three inches, and shoots daggers at Lily's dad, who's not even bothering to hide his laughter.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“No?” Lily abandons all pretence at eating, tosses her knife and fork together on her plate. “So, Christmas, how you spent all day giggling at all her terrible jokes—“

“I don't _giggle—_ “

“—and how you were cuddled up on the sofa, looking _awfully_ cosy, that's just because you're friends, right?”

“God, Ted.” Albus has both eyebrows raised, expression wicked. “Gross. That's our _cousin_.”

“I'm, she's, you,” Teddy splutters, turning to their dad for help.

Harry just laughs, folding his arms. “You're on your own this time, Ted. I hate to break it to you, but I caught you staring at her at least twelve times when you thought nobody would notice.”

“Well, I,” Teddy flounders, and then, frantic, attempts to divert attention elsewhere, “I heard Lily got all cosy with a certain Longbottom at that crazy New Year's party.”

“Nice try.” Lily tips him a lazy wink. “Euan's one of my best friends.”

“There was _alcohol_ at that party, Ginny,” says Teddy desperately, “ _alcohol_.”

“I'm sure there was. For once, though, our darling daughter returned the next day entirely sober.” Lily's mum turns to look at her, at once fond and exasperated. “I've got very good at the sobriety test charms the last few years.”

“ _You_ were sober?” demands Albus in surprise, and Lily sits up straight and pretends to polish her halo.

“I'm only sixteen, brother mine, I'm not old enough to drink.”

“Oh, get out,” says James scornfully, and in short order they're all bickering over each other, voices raised, arms gesticulating, the warm kitchen thrumming with love and rivalry and no little teasing.

Later, when James has sloped back off to his flat in London and Lily's parents have given up on persuading them all out for a late-night winter walk around the village, Lily, Albus and Teddy sit together in the front room. Lily's sprawled out on cushions in front of the crackling fire, Teddy lounging on the sofa, both hands over his stomach, protesting that it's not fair that Harry's such a good cook, it's killer for his bowels.

“God,” says Lily at last, “if I have to hear one more thing about your bowels...”

“Yup.” Albus pushes himself up out of the squishy armchair, phone cradled in one hand. “I'm out.”

“Coward,” Lily calls after him, but he just lifts his middle finger to her as he disappears upstairs.

“What, he's going to sit in his room alone instead of talking to us lovely pair?” Teddy scrambles a little way up the sofa so he's more upright, pushing up his sweater to rub a hand over his bloated stomach. Lily makes a face and throws a blanket at him to make him cover it up. He just lifts his sweater higher until she pretends to gag.

“You wait,” she says, ignoring Teddy's laughter, “four, five minutes tops, he'll be back down the stairs and apparating out of the front garden. That's two nights in a row he's stayed in, no way he's going a third without getting laid or high.”

“Lame,” says Teddy, and reaches out to tug gently at a lock of Lily's hair. “So are you really not dating the Longbottom kid? It's a pity. You guys would be cute together.”

“No, we wouldn't.” Lily pointedly pulls her hair over her shoulder.

“Ooh, prickly. Do you have a boyfriend, then?”

Lily shoots a narrow look at him. He's holding an old family photograph above his head, squinting at it, only paying half-attention to teasing her.

“Broken record, much? You've been asking me that since I was ten. No wonder I've got funny notions about sex.”

“Gross, don't talk about sex. You're only twelve.”

Lily throws a pillow at him this time. He catches it, and when he lowers it, his face has changed. No longer teasing.

“You haven't, though, right?” His voice is low, concerned. “Had sex, I mean.”

Lily flutters her eyelashes. “Why? You offering?”

“Don't be gross. Have you?”

She stretches, catlike, and rolls onto her front. She's still tender there, and she has to hide a wince as she rolls back over and passes the movement off as a strange twitch.

“None of your business,” she tells Teddy primly, a little breathless.

“I just, you know, I worry about you. All of you.”

“Right, because you're such a responsible adult.”

“I'm more responsible than you.”

“That is not a high bar.”

“True,” he says, and for a second there's a flash of the usual Teddy behind the unexpectedly serious grown-up, with his laughing eyes and hapless charm. That is the Teddy Lily knows and treasures, with his stupid insistence that he's great at impressions when he's really terrible, and his inability to look at anything like an adult should.

“Would you be mad if I had had sex?” Lily demands, suddenly provocative. “Maybe I've slept with loads of people.”

“God.” He lifts his eyes to the ceiling, takes a deep breath. “I so hope you're using protection.”

It takes a lot of willpower not to let her hands wander to her waist then. But willpower is her forte, her saving grace, her superpower. So she just tips her head back, laughing, and keeps laughing until Teddy joins in.

“You're mad,” he tells her, and she gets up and launches herself at him, wrestling him off the sofa and pummelling any inch of him she can reach until he gets her into a headlock the way he used to when she was little and he was a gangly teenager, still trying to figure out how his limbs worked.

When he lets her go, she flops sideways, lies staring up at the formless patterns in the ceiling above.

“I'm about to be lame,” Teddy warns her, “but, look, you do know – like, you can talk to me about this shit, right? If you need help, or – or anything you don't want to go to your parents about, you know? I'm here.”

Lily would usually make a snarky response or pretend to be sick. Instead she just blinks and then, so tiredly, says, “Yeah. I know.”

-x-

Some time around mid-afternoon the next day, Lily is making bread with her mother in the kitchen. Neither of them are much cop at cooking, but last Christmas hols it became a little ritual of theirs, locking themselves away and creating a haven of delectable scents and femaleness, a rare safe space where Lily can let her guard down around her mum.

She loves her mother, the same as she loves her father. But in a family like this, with brothers like hers, you don't leave openings or someone pounces. Not nastily, not to dig or manipulate like her friends sometimes do. But pounces all the same.

Here, though, in the kitchen in their cosy, messy five-bedroom house, the aga warming the room and the countertops cluttered with baking equipment, Lily is safe.

And that is probably why her mother figures her out.

“So,” says Ginny, scraping the sourdough into the tin as Lily steadies it with studious intent, “are you going to tell me what's going on with you, or am I going to have to guess?”

Lily doesn't take her eyes off the tin. “Guess what?”

“The big something. I know you. Something's happened, or is happening. And it's something you ought to tell your father and I about.”

“Interesting.” Lily lets the tin go and turns to open the oven. “How d'you figure that?”

“Oh, you're good at hiding it, don't worry. But I'm your mum. You've got tells, to me.” She lifts the tin off the side, carries it over and slides it neatly onto the shelf. Lily closes the oven door on it, leans to crank the timer.

“What tells?” She's genuinely curious about this. She needs to learn them so she can stop them happening.

“That's for me to know, and you to hopefully never find out, so I can keep an eye on you.” Her mum brushes hair out of her eyes and flops down into a chair at the kitchen table.

On guard now, Lily leans a hip against one of the cabinets, picking up a mug of tea to give her hands something to do.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” Her mum spreads her hands on the table, palms up. No hidden weapons. “I mean it. Anything. Boy trouble. Drink. Drugs. Hell, if you were pregnant, you could tell me.”

Lily is too good to be caught out by this. There is a sly glint in her mother's eye, a tilt at the corner of her mouth that telegraphs her intent to catch Lily out here. Something has given her cause for suspicion. Silently, blankly, Lily cycles back through the past few weeks, tries to identify what she could have done.

She knows her mum is smart. Smarter than most other people's parents, even allowing for her own natural bias. She could, conceivably, have matched Lily not drinking at the Selwyns' party – out of character – with the lack of form-fitting dresses and high-waisted jeans over the holidays, and extrapolated further to Lily's newly diminished appetite in the morning. No morning sickness, for which Lily's remained grateful, but she keeps waking up queasy and having to wait a couple of hours before she's ready to eat.

So. If her mum has put these things together, she needs now to be misdirected. And misdirection is a particular speciality of Lily's.

“Yes, Mum,” she says in her driest tone, “however did you guess? I'm totally up the duff. And the father – oh, well, I couldn't say. He's married, you know. High up in the Ministry. A friend of Dad's, actually.”

“Ha ha.” Her mum can be just as dry, when she wants to be, but Lily can see the relief in her eyes. “So, what is it, then?”

Lily takes a studious sip of her tea. “Honestly?”

“Yeah. Always honestly.”

“It's lame.”

“Not to me.”

Lily sighs and twists the mug in her hands. “It's really stupid. I just – I was kind of going out with somebody. Not for long or anything, just a bit. But I liked him. And he dumped me.”

There is enough truth here to really sell it. Her mum's eyes crease at the edges and she reaches up, squeezes Lily's wrist.

“Whoever he is, he's an idiot.”

“I know.” She smiles sadly down at her tea. “But it still feels pretty crap.”

“Yeah, I bet. I'm sorry.”

“I'll be alright.” She lifts a shoulder, her sweater slipping down to reveal the purple stripe of her bra strap and the freckles that dust her collarbone. Her mum smiles and stands. Just a couple of steps and then she's wrapping Lily tight into a hug, pressing her face into her hair.

“I know you will. You're the strongest girl I know.”

“Thanks, Mum,” says Lily quietly, and tucks the fear away as deep down as she can. She is strong. The daughter of heroes, of warriors. She will make a decision about this problem and she will see it through, and that's all there is to it. No drama, no wavering.

“Remember,” her mum murmurs into her hair, “if you really need it, a bat bogey hex never goes amiss.”

Lily peels away, laughing. “Mother! Shocking.”

Her mum laughs too, bright and happy, and snaps at Lily's legs with a tea towel. By the time her dad comes down to find out what they're up to, they're singing along to Abba, the scent of bread thick in the air, all Lily's problems banished for the moment to a dark place inside herself where they can't get out and cause pain.

It's a temporary fix. But those are all she knows how to do.

Later that night, sleepless again, Lily creeps downstairs for a glass of water. Voices from the sitting room stop her on the stairs. Like she used to when she was a child, she crouches three steps from the bottom and presses her ear against the wall. Her father is speaking, tone low and serious.

“—wait for her to tell us.”

“She won't.” Her mum is louder, utterly certain. “God, Harry, I love her so much, but you know she won't. She can lie to us without even thinking twice. And this—“

“If it's even true. You said you weren't so sure earlier, after you talked to her.”

“I know. But, you know, all the baggy things she's been wearing. And she's barely seen her friends, not the way she always has before. She's not been drinking, not eating in the mornings – that's how I was with Albus. And it's almost a month since she's been home, you know how the cramps lay her out usually, but nothing. Nothing at all.”

Lily winces, trying to imagine discussing her period with her dad and coming up with only a red wall of shame. It's the sort of thing she is confident she can go her whole life without needing to talk to him about. But now he's sitting there, letting the idea of her not getting her period tick over in his mind, and she feels a kind of fear she's never felt before.

But then he says again, surer this time, “She'd tell us, Gin. She would.”

“I don't—“

“She knows she can talk to us. And this is, this isn't just the usual teenage bullshit they cover up. This is serious. Lily's so far from stupid, even if she did get herself into this kind of, this,” he can't say it, and Lily pictures him knuckling his lower lip, holding the words in, “even if she did, she'd know to tell us. She's smart enough.”

“Yeah.” Her mum says the word on a sigh, unconvinced. “I don't know.”

“Let's wait and see before we go and do or say something we can't take back, yeah? Either she'll tell us, or time will prove us right or wrong. There's nothing else we can do, unless you want to slip her Veritaserum—“

Lily blanches at that, but her mum is laughing suddenly, the sound helpless and sad and fond. “God. First time in my life I've actually been tempted.”

“It'll be alright,” says her dad, and the sofa creaks as he stands up. Lily hears him cross the room, then the soft wet sound of him kissing her mother. She heads back upstairs in silence before she can hear any more.

She has to lie harder than she's ever lied before. It's four days before she's due at Parks' house for their regular night-before-school sleepover. So for four days, she has to believe in the lie as hard as she can. So hard nobody, not even herself, could suspect the truth behind the dishonesty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'm very grateful to everyone who's stuck with this story so far. Really hope you like this latest update.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily makes the impossible decision at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up! Thank you so much for continuing to read – I'm honestly astonished anybody except me is interested in reading this sorry little mess, but I'm forever and ever grateful. In this chapter you get to meet my favourite ever place I've invented for my Harry Potter universe: Hoarwood Market. 
> 
> Trigger warnings in this chapter for brief hints at an eating disorder and discussions of abortion.

The day before the Hogwarts Express is due to leave Kings Cross, Lily dumps her trunk and cases at Parks' house with the others and they head out together for their final day of freedom before school begins.

She feels the weight lift off her shoulders with every minute away from home. The pressure of the lie, previously easy enough to forget for hours at a time, has dogged her every step since the overheard conversation in their sitting room four nights before. She's spent so long beating the falsehood into herself that she has flashes of time where she has to press her hands to her stomach to remind herself of the truth.

But now she is with her friends, her mood climbing sky-high, eating up their news and their holiday squabbles with family and oozing with jealousy over the ridiculous gifts given to Yelena and Clary to make up for the lack of attention from their parents.

They take the Tube across London to Tottenham Court Road and burst back out into the dirty grey daylight, arms looped together, chattering a mile a minute. Lily has Winnie's elbow tucked tight into her side, squeezing in gentle reassurance. Winnie had texted her the day after the party, a message rambling and overlong and full of nerves, asking her to please not say anything about Hugo, not until she was ready for everyone else to know. Lily, hugging her arms over her stomach, had had no trouble swearing it.

Now they turn, giggling, and press together past the sleek rows of Muggle shops on Oxford Street and down a tiny, deserted side alley. Parks pulls her wand from her sleeve and Beth cranes her neck around to be sure they're not overlooked. The fifth and sixth railings from the right in front of an austere old townhouse are bent away from one another, like something has tried to get through. Parks taps her wand neatly to both sides of the gap created there, then twice on the top with an audible clang.

“Hurry up,” hisses Clary, shivering inside her massive puffa coat. “You're always so dramatic about it.”

“Am not.” Parks does the final tap fast and aggressive to prove it, then steps back and tucks her wand away as the gap widens and stretches with a near-inaudible groan. Hubbub rises behind it, noise slinking through the space, and Lily can't help pressing forward in anticipation.

“Go on then,” Parks says with a sigh, and steps back to let her through first.

“I know it's old news for you Londoners,” Lily tells her, pretending to be sniffy, “but us simple country bumpkins are allowed to be excited.”

“Get over yourself.” Parks pushes her bodily through. Lily stumbles, laughing, and bends almost double to push her way between the newly widened railings.

She steps out into the bellowing racket of Hoarwood Market, chic witches and wizards on all sides poring over stalls full of vintage clothing and handcrafted jewellery. Directly in front of her, a brown-skinned man in a turban is gesturing at her with a silver necklace. As Lily's friends filter through behind her, she steps forward, entranced. The necklace blinks at her and then lifts its head, a perfect snake in miniature, its eyes jewel green and the scales on its body so finely wrought they don't look real.

“Imitation emeralds,” says Yelena dismissively, pushing past Lily. “And I've bought from him before. Half the jewellery tries to kill you when you're not paying attention.”

“Lies,” spits the trader, but Lily's already being spirited away, laughing, the seven of them pressing into the crowds.

Lily loves it here. Loves it every time she comes. The endless flashing colours, the constant roar of conversation and bartering, the thick scents of spices from the food carts and dust from the antique goods. The hues seem even brighter today against the thickly clouded sky, filmy lengths of silk tossed out into their paths with the flick of a trader's wand and strange, carved wooden creatures flitting around their heads and calling at them from the stalls.

She remembers the first time Parks introduced her to the market. She was twelve, staying with Parks and her mother during Easter hols, first year. Pansy had swept them out of the house with a sigh, smothered in a fur coat so luxurious Lily had nearly died for wanting to put her hands on it. She'd brought them here and set them loose, pausing only to perform a desultory tracking and alarm spell before marching off to an appointment with her favourite tailor.

Parks had drawn Lily into the wonders of Hoarwood. The food from every corner of the world, with a pinch of yellow comfrey for a bit of extra luck in the humous or a sprinkling of eye of doxy in the thick and juicy burgers for a smattering of new strength. The vintage clothes that the stall owners were only too happy to let them try the minute they recognised the red of Lily's hair and the tilt of her nose from the photos that had been plaguing her since she was born.

And the chaos of it. The sheer _aliveness_. The witches and wizards from countries Lily had never even heard of at the time, like the woman from Uzbekistan who swapped their precious sickles for squares of glorious turquoise tile on black leather straps, telling them the story of the cities their necklaces came from. Bukhara of the sunlit domes, Khiva of the mighty walls, glorious Samarkand, the seat of Tamerlane.

The wizard from Myanmar, which he called Burma, who recognised the gold of Parks' skin and the slant of her eyes and called out to her in the tongue the father she never knew would have taught her, had he stuck around for long enough. While Lily watched, bewitched, he gave her a scrap of fabric woven on the hidden magical shore of Inle Lake and told her she could come back to him, if she ever wanted to know more about the country she half belonged to.

Lily doesn't know if she ever went back.

When Pansy found them, hours later, they were tucked against the base of the statue of Giuliano Locatelli, the great 15th century trader whose curiosities from the famed Silk Road brought witches and wizards from all over Europe to his Venetian palazzo. Lily had been so stuffed with wonder she could barely walk, her head whirling with far-off lands and exotic scents, her pockets weighed down with treasures that would soon become nothing more than trinkets, consigned to little boxes dotted around her room.

It's still there, that sense of nascent awe, even though she's come back to Hoarwood so many times since that first damp April morning.

“What first?” she demands of her friends, a trifle breathless.

“Coffee,” decides Yelena, and turns to the left. Beth loops her arm into Yell's and agrees, “And pastries.”

“Then clothes.” Clary follows them down a narrow aisle between stalls, her eyes roving over the homemade ceramics and beautiful candles.

Lily is happy to be led. She just wants to explore, the way she always has. She can never quite shake the feeling, in Hoarwood, that if she just wanders long enough she'll find a portal to another world hidden behind a rug stand or under one of the carts that sells sugar-dusted sweets.

They push two tables together under the disapproving eye of a pair of painfully cool young witches, slumping into seats as Beth and Ophelia head to the stall to get coffee for everyone. Lily burns her tongue on her first sip, but takes another greedy one anyway. It comes in little copper cups, thick with grounds at the bottom, so strong she swears she can feel it in her bones.

“Oi oi,” says Parks suddenly, and Lily's stomach sinks to her toes. She can see who her friend has spotted.

“Oh, she's not buying baby clothes _already_.” Yelena's voice is low and disgusted. Lily feels a burst of sudden love for her, for all of them, even Beth. Their loathing of Victoire has been absolute since Lily told them the news, quite happy to regard it as a great and deliberate betrayal, though Victoire has no idea what she's done.

“Bet it'll be an ugly baby,” says Ophelia loyally, even though they all know that's practically impossible. Lily's showed them pictures of Victoire's boyfriend Ben. For the pair of them to produce a child anything less than stunning would be nothing short of a miracle.

“Want to call them over?” Parks tips her head to the side, raises her eyebrows at Lily. “We can def shame her.”

“Nah, it's alright.” Lily wraps her hands tighter around her coffee. Victoire is picking over tiny onesies and miniscule hats, her expression intent and lovely. She looks happy, despite everything. She lifts the tiniest pair of shoes Lily has ever seen and turns to someone coming out of the crowd, beaming.

Lily feels her whole body clench tight. Louis is emerging from behind a group of elderly wizards, takeaway coffee cups in either hand, his red-gold curls held down by a cream-coloured beanie hat and a thickly fleeced denim jacket drawn tight around his shoulders. The cold has brought red to his cheeks and a sparkle to his eye. He looks unbearably handsome, and unbelievably miserable.

She hasn't seen him since that afternoon in her house. _I think maybe I shouldn't see you for a while_. Every other day, she's unlocked her phone and gone to his name in her messages, held her thumbs over the screen, dreamed of what she might say. And then she's closed it up and not said anything at all.

It's a little bit of a consolation, to see him looking the way she feels inside. Desolate, like the world has shifted in some indefinable but devastating way, and he's still trying to find his balance in his new reality.

When he sees his sister, he transforms. His smile, Lily thinks, could convince almost anyone he's fine. He hands Victoire the drink and takes the shoes in one big hand. They're so tiny they disappear completely. It hits Lily like a punch, the desire to be the one handing the shoes to him. For her to be standing there in place of Victoire, and for Louis to be smiling at her the way he did the times they were alone together. For him to tilt the shoes from side to side, then shake his head, put them down, and reach for some lame slogan-covered thing that says _Daddy's little angel_. To hold it against her belly, laughing, and then take her hand and wander the market with her. To have a future before them, bright and shining.

“You alright, Lily?” Ophelia's leaning in, expression worried. “You've gone ever so pale.”

She tears her eyes away and nods, playing it off with a laugh. “Sorry. Bit hungover, to tell the truth. Al and I got drunk and took pics last night for back-to-school money.”

“Nice.” Yelena extends a hand out for Lily's phone. “Go on then, let's see. How much you get?”

Lily gives her the phone without complaint, unlocking it before she passes it over.

“Fifty galleons apiece for the ones of Al with his head in the toilet. Four hundred for the one of him streaking. I had to watch his bony arse run down our street, but it was worth it.”

“Fucking hell.” Parks grabs for the phone once Yelena's done, swiping from side-to-side. “God, I wish I was famous.”

Lily just grins, smug as anything. She and Albus have been running this little scam for the last two years, bulking up the meagre pocket money their parents give them by anonymously selling pictures of each other to various gossip rags, making plenty to tide them over the school term. They let James in on it, sometimes, when he's not been too much of a prick.

Usually, they would be drunk doing it, and Al definitely was last night. It's not a hard lie to tell.

“Give it back, then.” She extends a palm for her phone, tucks it away into her pocket. “You all ready to shop yet or what?”

The coffees are finished. The pastries have vanished, Clary's scarfed down by Parks before anyone else could get to it. If they move now, they can be well away before—

“Oh, hi Victoire,” says Beth, her voice syrup-sweet. “How are you? You're looking _radiant_.”

Lily turns as slowly as she can get away with. Her eyes go to Louis first. She can't help herself. He's studiously looking anywhere but at her, eyebrows pinched together. She is somehow both comforted and horrified to see the deep purple bags beneath his eyes, the downwards pull at the corners of his mouth.

“Yes, thank you, sorry...?” Victoire is looking at them all a little nervously, pulling a full canvas tote up her arm.

“Beth,” says Beth, smiling prettily, “Beth Zabini. Lily probably doesn't talk about me much.”

“Of course, she's mentioned you all.” Victoire lies more smoothly than Lily expected. “Just wanted to come over and say hi. Back to school shopping?”

“Yup.” Lily chips in now, trying not to make it obvious she's gritting her teeth. “Got to get some killer outfits for the parties, obviously.”

“Obviously.” Victoire meets her gaze with a smile. “We've got to get to Diagon next, get Lou some new Quidditch pads.”

Lily's eyes slide to Louis. He glances at her, so fast she almost misses it, and then goes back to staring at his feet. Lily wants him to look at her, suddenly. Wants it badly enough to make her angry, even though she was the one who broke it off in the first place, even though really – when you get right down to it – the whole sorry mess is entirely her fault.

“Go through the last set, did you?” Her tone is that special kind of mild that her friends know means trouble. They shift in their seats as she adds, an edge to her voice now, “It's all that practice, _Lou_ , you ought to take a break.”

“Right.” His voice is so quiet Lily can barely hear him over the bustle of Hoarwood. He still won't look at her. He just tilts his head at Victoire and says, “We should probably...”

“Oh, yeah.” Victoire pulls her bag up her arm again. “Well, nice seeing you, girls. Enjoy your shopping.”

“You too,” says Beth, smiling. She flips her wild curls over her shoulder and says, “See you at school, Louis.”

“Right,” he says again, “sure. Okay.” He turns away as fast as he can. Lily sees his fist clenching around his coffee cup, his knuckles white.

She is simmering beneath her skin, the coffee and the anger setting her on fire.

“Man,” says Beth, pretending to brush something off her coat, “you are in a _mood_ , Potter.”

“I'm always in a mood. We shopping, or what?”

When she pushes herself out of her chair, they all follow, pressing in behind her. There's a moment of uncertain silence, like something's hanging over them. Lily wants to take them all by the shoulders and scream at them to be normal. And then Clary spots a dress and dives for it with a sigh of pleasure, and Lily feels the tension begin to drain out of her, inch by inch, as they begin to pick their way through the racks of clothing, ready to transform themselves with velvet and lace.

In a makeshift changing room with Yelena, Lily is pulling a deep red dress over her head when she stops dead. Yell has put cold fingers against her stomach, pressing against the almost unnoticeable bump.

“Please,” says Yell very quietly, “please tell me you've just been eating a lot this Christmas.”

Lily steels herself and pulls the dress the rest of the way on. She meets Yelena's eyes in the mirror, hazel on blue.

“I have,” she admits, “but that's not why—“

“Oh, fuck. _Fuck_ , Lily. I thought you and Wes didn't...”

“We didn't. It's not his.”

“Well who's, then?”

Lily bites hard on the inside of her cheek. “I can't say.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Who is he? Married? A teacher?”

Lily does a little wobble with her head, non-committal, and Yelena pushes her thumbs into the corners of her eyes.

“For fuck's sake.”

“I know. Look, Yell, I – I'm still... thinking about it. You know, deciding. If you could just, maybe not mention it? I would appreciate it.”

“The others aren't thick, Lily. They'll notice the first time we get changed together.”

“It mostly just looks like I'm bloated at the moment. I'll have a bit more time, you know? To decide.”

Yelena sighs so deeply Lily feels the gust of it against her face.

“I thought you knew what you were doing. Outrage, etcetera.”

“I was,” says Lily, toying with the hem of the dress, “I did. But I don't... I'm not sure right now. I need to think about it.”

Yelena sighs again, softer this time. And then she reaches out, clutches Lily into a tight, tight hug.

“You really should have fucking thought about it first.”

Tears rise up in Lily's eyes and dampen the shoulder of the yellow sweater Yell's trying on. She blots them away with a cuff, sniffing loudly.

“I know,” she says quietly, “I know.”

-x-

Swamped inside a lumpy vintage hoodie, a cartoon hippogriff zooming back and forth over her chest, Lily is starting to think she can get away with it. It's their second evening back at school and she's engineered it well, so far. None of her friends seem to have a clue. Yelena, of course, keeps giving her meaningful looks in class and over meals, but Lily has many years of practice in deliberately ignoring meaningful looks.

They're all lounging in the girls' dorms, bar Parks, who carried over three detentions from last term and is up near the Transfiguration department somewhere writing lines. Orion is arguing loudly with Beth and Ophelia about something to do with their Divination lesson earlier in the day. Ellery and Clary are cloistered together in the far corner of the room, frantically trying to finish essays they should have done over the holidays. Yelena is trying to help, pointing out unsubstantiated claims and grammar errors, and is probably not far off getting sworn at for her troubles if the look on Clary's face is anything to go by.

Tucked up under her white fluffy blanket with Winnie and Euan, Lily has drawn the curtains of her bed mostly closed. In the warm dimness, they're projecting a film off Euan's phone onto the four-poster's velvet canopy, headphones tucked into their ears.

She should be perfectly content. They've spent so many evenings like this at Hogwarts, safe in their private little space, kings and queens of their own petty domain. But of course she can't be content. Not now. Under the blanket, her hands are anchored back over her belly again, resting there lightly. No matter how much she's trying to concentrate on the kids' animation they're watching, she can't help her mind's restless circling around this problem.

“Shit,” she says at last, pulling her headphones out and dropping them onto her duvet. They slide over to her bedside table and hop into their case, a handy little charm Yelena taught them all last year. Euan sits up, frowning, but Winnie just tilts her head, her hair spread out on the pillows, an eyebrow raised.

“What's up?”

“I need some fresh air.”

“I'll come,” says Euan, and doesn't give her a chance to argue. They leave Winnie there, the film still playing. Lily pauses only to switch her pyjama shorts for jeans, and waves the others back as they look up.

“Going for a walk.”

Euan follows her out in silence, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket. Lily sets a furious pace, expression black. They weave their way up out of the dungeons, ignoring the few people they pass on their way back from the library or clubs. Euan doesn't try to talk. Lily looks back at him just once and finds him studying her apprehensively, his mouth twisted to one side.

Lily leads them out into the courtyard below Gryffindor Tower, pausing only to suck in a great lungful of cold, fresh air before she huddles down onto a bench, her hands pressed between her thighs. Euan stops by the doorway to the Charms corridor and fishes a couple of thick blankets out of the magically enlarged basket left there. He hands one over to her as he joins her, and then wraps his own around his shoulders.

“So,” he says, once they're sure they're alone, “you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Made a decision?”

“No.”

His face pinches up. “You really should—“

“There's no hurry. I've googled it, I've got up to twenty four weeks to get an abortion if I want one. And I'm barely ten weeks in. It's fine.”

“The later you leave it—“

“I know. Don't worry. Aren't you going to smoke?”

He pulls his hands from his pockets and spreads them wide to show they're empty. “It'd be bad for the kid.”

Lily rolls her eyes. “ _I'm_ not smoking.”

“Secondhand is bad too.” He tucks his hands back inside his blanket and looks at her squarely. “Look, I think you should tell him.”

She goes very still. “Who?”

“Don't do that. You know who.”

“Right. So I should just walk up and be like, hey, yeah, so you're going to be a cousin and a dad. Happy New Year.”

“Well,” he eases himself back against the tree trunk, nose scrunched up, “I mean, I'd do it with more finesse. But yeah. Basically.”

“I can't _tell_ him.”

“Why not?”

“Because—“ she flounders for a moment here, unable to immediately put into words all the reasons this is a monumentally bad idea, “—because it's nothing to do with him. It's, I mean, I decided this. I went for it. So it's up to me.”

Euan surges forwards, suddenly, leaning in so far they're almost nose to nose.

“Lily. You dragged him into this. That,” he says, jabbing a hand towards her abdomen, “that's half him, in there. It's not nothing to do with him at all.”

“It's my body.” Her defiance is wavering.

“Yeah, and it's his fucking life. That's how babies are made, remember? Half you, and half him. So if you keep it and you don't tell him about it, if you just make the decision – that's wrong.”

“Like you care so much about being right.”

Euan presses a finger to her shoulder, at a loss for how else to drive his point home.

“You need to tell him. If you're keeping it, you have to tell him before you tell anyone else.”

The tears are back, traitorous. Lily sucks them back down with a sniff and drops her eyes to her lap. Her hands are twitching beneath the blanket.

“I thought you were on my side,” she says, and her voice sounds childish and insecure even to her own ears. Euan reaches for her immediately, covers her nervy hands with his own.

“I'm always on your side. But this? I can't – if it were me, Lily, I'd never forgive you for not telling me. Never.”

Lily looks up at him then. He's staring at her intently, brown eyes wide, golden brows furrowed, his whole body singing with the urgency of making her see his point. It's a face she has always had beside her, no matter where her life takes her. She can recall a million and one things they've fought about, bickered about, fallen out over. But she cannot recall a single thing that he has told her he would find unforgivable.

“I can't tell him,” she whispers, plaintive, “Euan, I can't. It would kill him.”

“So, what? You're going to tell everyone it was an immaculate conception?”

“No, I—“

“Lily. You have to make a decision.”

“God.” She twists, pushes herself up off the bench, takes two furious steps away from him. “You're being a real fucking piece of work tonight, Longbottom.”

“Don't get pissy at me because you know I'm right.”

“I'm not. I'm pissy because you're being patronising as all hell.”

“For fuck's sake. Just accept it. If you're keeping it, you have to tell him. Or you have to get rid of it. Either way you have to make a choice.”

Lily pulls the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. “I don't have to do anything I don't want to do.”

When she turns to storm out, Euan chases after her. “What, you're going to march off through the grounds, are you? Freeze to death to prove a point? Get eaten by a werewolf?”

“Oh, fuck off. You can be as self-righteous as your dad sometimes, you know that?”

“Fuck you, Potter.”

“Fuck _you_. Leave me alone.”

“No. You're my friend.”

“Then why are you giving me such a hard time?”

He puts a hand out, takes her by the arm, brings to her a halt. It's so dark she can barely see him, just the outline of his head, limned in gold by the lights coming from the castle windows. The ground is wet and cold beneath her shoes, her trainers totally inappropriate for the weather and the time of year.

“Because you'll regret it if you don't tell him.”

Lily shudders his hand off and he steps back, head tilted, sizing her up.

“Just,” she says, voice abruptly raspy, “just leave it for tonight, okay? Just for tonight.”

“I don't—“

“I just need you to be my friend right now. Please, Euan. Please.”

He turns that over, examining it for manipulation. Lily tries not to blame him. He's known her too long to do anything else. And she never says please, not to him. With each other, they take, no questions asked and no boundary uncrossed save the one that matters most.

When he speaks at last, it cuts her to the quick.

“I can't be your friend if you do this, Lily.”

She staggers back. He doesn't move. Doesn't come forward to support her, the way he always has.

“How can you—“

“Look, when it's just your life? Fine. Do whatever you want. You know I'm with you every step of the way. But this isn't just your life, Lily. And it isn't some, some, some nothing joke, some idiotic bit of teasing that whoever it is will leave behind them when they leave school. This fucking _matters_. This is real, grown-up, life-changing shit. And it's his life too. His and that baby's.”

“The baby is nothing.” Lily's hands clench over her stomach, fists pressing inwards. “It's nothing, it's just a whole bunch of cells moving around, feeding off me. It's not a, not a person, not a baby. It doesn't factor into this.”

“Fuck, do you even hear yourself?” He spreads his arms wide, helpless. “It doesn't factor... it _is_ the factor. It's the single fucking factor here, and you standing there pretending it's not, like if you just lie hard enough, it's not going to exist anymore? It's pathetic. It's not _you_.”

“Maybe it is. Maybe I am pathetic, maybe I—“

“No.” Euan lets his arms drop. “Don't do that. This conversation is not about who you are as a person, or me.”

 _Like walking into a mirror maze_ , Albus said to her all those weeks ago, hazy with drink. Lily realises in a wild sweep of despair that she's walked herself into this one. Refracted and reflected so many lies, so much manipulation and so much pain that she's walled herself into a dead end, only her own desperation to keep her company. But Euan – Euan is a wrecking ball, always has been. Is willing to pull her to pieces if it means keeping her safe.

He steps up to her, tight with frustration, his jaw clenched.

“You don't want this.” He reaches out, takes her by the shoulders. “That's the truth here. You're so far out of your depth you can feel the abyss opening up underneath you. You don't want this baby, you don't want its father, and you don't want what it will do to you. And I know, I know that's not you. I know you've never backed away from a scary thing in your life. But this isn't like everything else. It's not just your three lives, it's your family – your parents, your brothers, your cousins. You saw what my parents divorcing did to us, how much it fucked up Daisy, how hard it... this will be worse, no matter what you tell yourself.”

His fingers flex, tightening on her shoulders. She feels like he's crushing her inwards, sloughing away the shell to prise the frightened little girl to the surface.

“So you have to choose.” He leans in, presses his forehead to hers. “Choose to keep it. Tell him. Or—“

“Make it go away,” Lily finishes for him, her voice thick and hoarse. Her eyes flutter shut. “But I want it. That's the terrible thing.” Here, now, in the dark of the Hogwarts grounds, Euan so steady, she can admit this unthinkable truth. “Euan, I want to keep it.”

He pulls his head back. “Okay. Give me the reasons why.”

“I don't have any reasons. I know it can't – even if I had it, you know, gave... birth, and everything, I couldn't keep it. I don't want a kid. I am easily the worst person on the planet to be a mother. But I, this... I keep imagining holding it, watching it grow up. How pathetic is that? Jesus. All this time plotting for it and now I'm fucking—“

He wraps his arms around her shoulders and yanks her into a hug. He smells like soil and cigarettes. Her tears soak into his jacket.

“He'd be there, you know.” His words print themselves into the top of her head. “He's fucking – noble, or whatever. He'd be a dad.”

“I know.” Lily pulls away and he lets her go, thumbing the tears from her cheeks. She draws in a shaky breath. “That's why I can't keep it.”

Euan pauses with his hand still anchored to her jawline. “What?”

“I have to get rid of it. Because you're right – if I keep it, then I have to tell him. And if I tell him, he'll stick by it. Me. Us. And I'll have completely destroyed him.”

“He might want that.”

“Nobody would want that.”

“You should let him choose.”

“I can't. I know what he'd choose. And I can't let him.”

Euan puts his other hand to her face, cradles her head, tenderer than she's ever known him to be.

“You have to be sure. There's no taking this back.”

She wraps her fingers around his wrists, holds him there. A distant susurration passes over the top of the Forbidden Forest, the night expectant and grim.

“I'm sure,” she says, and lets the mirror maze shatter for good.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily comes clean to her friends (about some things) and deals with her problem at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning this chapter for abortion. Bit of a heavy one, this, so sorry in advance!

On Saturday morning, Lily phones Teddy. He comes to Hogsmeade willingly enough, shambling through the village to greet her, his hair still sticking up on one side where he's slept on it. He smells of sleep and mint toothpaste.

She draws him down one of the narrow side streets and checks quickly for eavesdroppers, then turns to face him squarely.

“I need your help.”

He yawns massively, barely bothering to cover it. “Shoot.”

“No. This is – I mean, I'm actually in trouble. Like, properly.”

That gets his attention. His adult-Teddy face descends, brows pinched together. The newness of this face still slams into her, the strangeness of it on him. He doesn't wear responsibility naturally.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Trouble I very much need my parents to never find out about.”

“I swear. What, like, drugs? Overdose? Alco—“

“I'm pregnant,” she tells him, and then has to grab him by the sleeve so he doesn't stagger backwards into the goat pen. “Teddy. I'm not kidding. I'm pregnant and I need your help to get rid of it.”

He mouths a few times, helplessly, and then limply announces, “I would really like to tell your mum and dad about this.”

“You promised.”

“I know. Jesus. I'm not gonna. I just – for fuck's sake, Lily, you're sixteen. Who's the father?”

“Not important.”

“Well, fuck. What do you need me to do?”

She produces a scrap of parchment from her pocket, an address and a doctor's name scrawled on it in blue biro. “I need you to get me to this doctor. It's – I'm going Muggle. No risk of gossip that way. I have an appointment. They'll, like, examine me, or something. And then book me in to – well. You know.”

“I...” His shoulders sag, defeated. “Okay. Whatever you need.”

He's as good as his word. His awkwardness throughout the wait at the GP surgery is palpable, his shoulders climbing almost to his ears, gazing around at the Muggles with such paranoia that Lily has to mutter a threat to hex him if he doesn't seriously calm down. She had toyed with the idea of bringing him into the appointment itself, embarrassingly desperate for support. But instead she makes him wait outside, unable to bear his squirming one moment longer.

It's a hard thing, the moment she has to say, _yes, I'm sure_. She refuses to let her hands drift to her abdomen. Refuses to think twice about the thing growing there, nurtured by her body. It's just a parasite, an illness she needs to cure. That's all. She will not think about what it could be. She takes the dreams and locks them away so deep inside herself she'll never stumble across them again.

She signs everything she's asked to sign, repeats herself for the second doctor who has to come in to sign off, submits in silence to the check-up, and returns to Teddy clutching an appointment slip for the following Saturday.

“Come on,” she says to him shortly, jerking her head, “we're done.”

She shoots a glance over her shoulder as they leave and finds the doctor watching, her expression carefully impassive. Her eyes are diving between Lily and Teddy, trying to figure them out. Lily is feeling angry enough about everything to move a little closer, pick a line of thread off Teddy's jacket, give the doctor a reason to worry.

Teddy drops her back in Hogsmeade, the very picture of misery.

“It's fine,” she tells him before she goes back to the castle. “Seriously, Teddy. Don't worry. I made a mistake, but I'm fixing it, and I promise you I won't let it happen again.”

“I love you, Lil. You know that? I do.” He grabs for her, wraps her up in one of those ridiculous big-brother hugs that makes her simultaneously want to punch him and never let him go. She compromises, squeezing him briefly round the middle and then stepping back, squinting up against the weak January sun at him.

“Thanks,” she says, and he just about manages a smile, though it's a thin and queasy thing.

“Yeah. So, see you next Saturday?”

“Yep. I'll go out of the grounds behind the greenhouses. Can you meet me on the other side of the fence?”

“I – yeah. I can.”

“Thanks,” she says, and then because she feels like she can't let it go without saying it back, “and I love you too, you idiot.”

“Prove it by never, ever having sex again,” he begs, and she almost manages a laugh, at that.

When she gets back to the Slytherin common room, she slips past her friends and heads straight for the dorm. Yelena comes to find her not long later.

“How'd it go?”

She hands the appointment slip over. “I'm booked in. Next Saturday.”

“Sure you don't want me to come with you?”

Yell reaches for a lock of Lily's hair, begins to twist it slowly around her forefinger. Lily sighs, leans in until her head is resting on her best friend's shoulder.

“Yeah, I'm sure. Thank you, though.”

“Of course. Just let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will.”

“I think you need to tell the others. They've figured out something's up, anyway, and it won't be long until one of them guesses. Plus, I'll need their help to cover for you next week.”

“I'm going right back to class, it won't—“

“You're not. I looked it up. It's, like, a couple of days recovery probably. That's what they say. Way less for Muggles, actually, so that's a smart move.”

“I'm super smart,” Lily says, and then sighs and flops backwards onto her bed. Yelena follows her down, pressing into her side. Lily breathes in deep, the familiar scent of expensive perfume and the sharp, clean smell of her deodorant.

“Are you okay?” Yell slips an arm under her head, pulls her in close.

Lily breathes out. “No. But I will be.”

-x-

She waits for Thursday night to tell the others. They're in the dorm again, Orion and Ellery tucked in amongst the girls, whispering loudly about how weird it is being summoned like this. Euan and Yelena are sat at the back of the room, watching her carefully as she comes clean.

“Oh,” says Winnie quietly when she registers the words. “That's—“

Ophelia's mouth is hanging open, eyes shining. Lily meets each of their gazes in turn, expression stormy, daring them all to say anything. She comes to Beth last. Beth, who she has hated and who has hated her all these years. Too similar, she's always thought, both of them too in need of everyone's attention to ever live in harmony. But Beth's looking at her now, hard and blazing, and she just gives Lily this tight little nod. Lily returns it, trying to fight the sudden thickness in her throat. So. She has finally found the line she needs to cross to broker peace.

“Who's is it?” Parks demands, expression fierce. “I thought you said you and Bones—“

“Nobody. A Muggle over the holidays.”

“No.” Parks pushes a fist into her opposite palm. “If you have to go in both days to take the pills, you're more than ten weeks gone.”

“How do you know?” Ophelia leans away from her slightly, eyebrows pulled together.

“I had to take my mum for her last one,” says Parks, teeth gritted, “so it has to have been at school, Lily. Who is it, then?”

“It doesn't matter.” Lily pushes her shoulders back, determined not to fold before the fire of that stare. But Parks is pushing to her feet, face twisting, saying, “Well, if you're asking us to cover for you, if you've lied about this all this time—“

“I haven't _lied_ ,” Lily protests, but Parks is still coming forwards, unstoppable.

“—I feel like the least you can do is just tell us the truth, because why wouldn't—“

And then Euan says, very distinctly, “It's mine.”

Lily's knees lock into place. The silence that follows this confession is absolute. Winnie actually has her hands over her mouth, eyes popping halfway out of her head. Orion and Ellery are beside themselves, clutching tight at each other's arms.

“Didn't want to admit to it because you're all going to be fucking weird about it,” he lies straight-faced, doleful enough to sell it, “but it's not – it was a very stupid shag when we were both off our faces. So can we please, _please_ drop it? It's getting fixed. And then we can all get back to our regularly scheduled nonsense.”

“You,” Parks says, breathless, “what, you—“

“Yeah, yeah. Bad decision central, we know.” Euan levels a long, hard look at Lily, brows furrowed. “Considering my parents might actually murder me if I add knocking Lily up to the list of stupid things I've done since they got divorced, how would you all feel about keeping it to yourselves?”

They subside, still shell-shocked, and Lily hopes he can read the thanks in her eyes. He comes up to her after they've all finished hugging her, fussing over her, trying not to look too often at her stomach.

“Thank you,” she murmurs into his shoulder, arms wrapped around his chest. “You're not going to be able to take that back any time soon.”

“Never will.” He steps back, shrugs. “I told you, didn't I? I've got your back.”

-x-

It hurts. That's what she can't get over. How much the damn thing _hurts_. It doesn't start until after Teddy's dropped her back at school on Sunday, thank God, his expression wavering from concern to fear to relief and back again. The first cramp racks her as she crosses the Slytherin common room, hard enough to bend her almost double. Yelena was waiting for her by the greenhouses; she grabs her now and tugs her down towards the dorm, half-carrying her as Lily groans into the side of her chest, trying to dig into her and get away from the pain.

“They didn't give you anything?” she demands as she pushes her onto her bed, fluttering helplessly as Lily writhes into her sheets and whimpers.

“Ibuprofen,” Lily pants, “before. They said – _fuck_ – no aspirin.”

“Jesus.” Yelena is still hovering when Parks comes out of the bathroom. She takes one look and comes over on a sigh, white towel wrapped tight around her body. Her long hair drips water over Lily's bedclothes as she bullies her upright and over to the bathroom.

They strip her down between them, experts, and lower her into a bath just the right side of scorching. Lily curls into the white enamel of the bathtub, the breath sobbing out from between her teeth.

“Is it supposed to be this bad?” Yelena asks, voice low. Parks says nothing, tight-lipped, the steam making her hair spring up into loose, frizzy waves.

“It'll pass,” Lily manages to grit out, eyes screwed shut, “they promised. A couple of hours, maybe.”

“You need a pain potion.” Yelena gets halfway to standing before Lily grabs at her and pulls her back down.

“Can't. Don't know how it'll interfere. Can't – can't risk stopping this.”

“You're going to do _this_ for hours—“ starts Yell hotly, but Parks lays a hand across her lap and shuts her up.

They stay with her the whole time. Ophelia and Winnie come back early from watching the Quidditch team practice, though Lily insisted this morning she didn't want their sympathy, didn't want them to change their plans for her. They join the three of them, cycling the water out as it turns red, trying to distract Lily with stupid games and gossip and scheming about how they'll get back at the Hufflepuff who stole the boy Ophelia's had her eye on the last few weeks.

Lily leans into it, this aggressive diversion from her pain. Any time they stop talking she goes a little wild around the edges and they start up, their hands pushing her sweaty hair back from her face, forcing tall glasses of water on her.

“Euan should be helping,” Ophelia says two and a half hours in, when Lily is finally starting to enjoy a little more reprieve between cramps, her pretty face drawn tight with misery, “he should be—“

“No.” Lily is listless, her forehead pressed limply into the lip of the tub. “This is nothing to do with him.”

If she saw the look they shared, she'd double down. But she misses it, too on-edge, waiting for the next cramp to strike. It feels like she blinks and there's Euan, hovering uncomfortably in the doorway, Ophelia at his side with her jaw set mulishly.

“I _said_ ,” Lily hisses, but the pain takes her again and the words dissipate. Euan's expression twists, frustrated, and he slides a glance sideways at Ophelia.

“Can you guys give us a minute?”

“We shouldn't—” starts Yelena, but Winnie takes her hand and draws her up, pulling her out of the room.

Euan pushes the sleeves of his sweater up and comes over, drops down beside the tub.

“If you use this opportunity to get an eyeful, Longbottom, I'll fucking murder you.” Lily's head flops back weakly and she trades a look with him, narrow-eyed.

“They're going to give me so much shit for this,” is all he says, dropping his fingers in the clear water, swirling lightly.

“I've told them. Not your fault. Anyway, you didn't have to pretend—“

“I know. I was just saying.”

“Fine.”

He lays his head on the bathtub's rim, gazing at her, brown eyes clear, brow furrowed.

“It's that bad?”

“It'll pass. It's already getting better.”

“I'll get your Care Of notes tomorrow,” he promises. When she rolls her eyes he laughs, recoiling from her feeble attempt to splash. He pushes himself to his feet and lingers a moment, staring down at her.

“I was right, you know,” he says, and she squints up at him. His grin is sudden and wicked. “About your tits. They really do look great right now.”

“Oh fuck _off_!”

He retreats, hands up, laughing, his front soaking wet from where she's splashed him, and she's laughing weakly herself when he pushes the door open and shoos the girls back in to her.

“Go on,” he says, still grinning, “I've paid my dues.”

“Leave him be,” Lily agrees, fixing them with the firmest look she can. “We're good.”

Within thirty minutes, she's feeling well enough to get out of the bath at last. Her skin has gone pruney and soft, wrinkled by her time in the water, but to her deep relief the bleeding seems to have slowed to a trickle.

That night, she puts a silencing charm on her bed to stop her tossing and turning from keeping the others awake. The cramps are coming and going, like the worst period she's ever had, and no matter which way she turns or how tightly she curls, she can't make them go away.

She finally falls into a fitful sleep around 3am. The dream that flickers to life behind her eyelids is the most vivid she's ever had. It's that strange jumpy film reel feel that's so familiar. There's a baby in her arms, heavy and warm. She can smell the sweetness of it, milk on its breath and sugary baby shampoo in its wisps of tawny hair. It's smiling up at her, all gums, hazel eyes wide and bright. And then, in that abrupt way of dreams, there is a warm, heavy weight behind her too, leaning in. Her bare shoulders pressed against a solid chest and arms around her, caging her and the baby in.

Louis leans down, rests his chin on her shoulder. One big hand lifts and dabbles the air over their son, dabbing at his nose, coaxing out a quick, delighted chuckle. There's a contentment in Lily she can't remember feeling, not in her whole life. Love for the two of them growing so big inside her chest she can barely contain it.

The thick scent of pollen makes itself known and she glances up. They're in the garden at the Burrow, suddenly, busy with summer flowers. The sun is beating down on them. Her grandmother is sunning herself in a huge hat, the brim drooping in the heat. Her brothers are playing catch with an old toy they had as kids, one that screams as it's tossed through the air.

Her parents are stretched out on a blanket together, her mother drowsing on her back, suncream thick on her chest and face. But her dad – her dad is looking at her, at her and Louis, smiling broadly, love and pride written all over his face.

Lily wakes up with a sob heaving itself out of her throat. She burrows down into her pillows, the tears unstoppable. It's impossible, she knows, an impossible dream. Another cramp takes her, low and pointed in the pit of her belly. And she cries harder for the baby who wanted only to hold onto its place inside her, who fought the inevitable so much more strongly than she ever expected. But perhaps she should have been expecting it. It was her child, after all. The fight was coded into its very cells.

As the wisps of the dream start to slough away, the tears slow. Lily tries to grasp onto it, to keep it close, but it frays and breaks in her hands. She takes a deep, shuddering breath and pushes herself upright, smearing the wetness off her cheeks.

Once she's got her breathing under control she slips from her bed and slinks over to the bathroom, shutting the door before she switches the light. She doesn't dare glance at the mirror; she already knows she looks like hell. She pees and switches her pad out, determined not to look at the blood on the one she throws in the bin.

At the sink, she splashes cold water onto her face, presses it onto her puffy eyes. And then, at last, she looks at herself head-on. Her eyes are raw, red-rimmed. Her skin is pale beneath her freckles, pallid and sweaty. Her hair is a tangled mess, knotted and fluffy, clawed back into a bun barely holding itself together.

It's the purple beneath her eyes that hammers it home, though. The bone-deep weariness that implies.

“Enough,” she tells her reflection, and presses her knuckles against the mirror. “Enough now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rumour spreads at Hogwarts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a heavy one. Sorry chaps.
> 
> Trigger warnings for: cousin incest, references to abortion, references to anorexia, underage pregnancy. 
> 
> Yup.

Lily permits herself a day of wallowing. She stays in bed, curled up tight, her favourite blanket tucked around her. She watches her way through twelve straight episodes of a true crime series, hungry for something that can have nothing to do with love. By the time her friends get back from dinner she's already feigning sleep, her curtains drawn tight.

Her sleep is deep, dreamless. She doesn't wake up fighting for breath.

And the next morning, just like that, she pushes herself out of bed at 7am sharp and drifts over to the bathroom to wash her face. Clary is already in there, weighing herself in the corner. She looks up, hunted, and Lily just gives her a sleepy smile. She is fine. They're both fine. Nothing to worry about.

By the time the others start moving around, Lily's already halfway done with her face. Yelena perches on the edge of one of the tubs as she watches her put mascara on, concentrating hard on the task.

“So,” Yell says at last, and begins to plait her own hair. “How you feeling?”

“Yeah, not bad. Cramps have stopped.”

“Yeah? That's good. And, otherwise, you're—“

“Fine,” Lily says firmly, and stares herself down in the mirror. “I'm fine.”

The lie carries her through breakfast. Through morning lessons, silent and contemplative in Transfiguration, which seems to unnerve Professor Wainwright. He keeps flicking glances at her cautiously, like he's convinced she's cooking up some kind of trouble. She wishes she could tell him to chill out. She's not in the mood for trouble. She's not sure she ever will be again.

Through lunch and afternoon lessons, she's fine. The thick, humid air in the greenhouses is a balm, easing her chest open inch by fragile inch. She's fine until the very end of the day, in fact. But that's when Professor Longbottom calls her name and asks her to stay behind at the end of class.

“I'll be late for tea, sir,” she says mutinously, one hand on the strap of her satchel. He sighs and presses his hand, briefly, across his face.

“I know. It's important.”

“Don't worry,” she says to Winnie, hovering nervously, “I'll catch up. Tell Euan not to eat all the sausages again.”

Her professor's face has creased up at that, two lines between his eyebrows that Lily hasn't noticed before carved deep. Conversely, it makes him seem younger to her than he ever has before. The knowledge that he worries and perhaps malingers as much as she and her friends do, in his own special way.

“Look,” he says, sitting down heavily on one of the benches, “there's no easy way to ask this, Lily. But there's a rumour going round that you're, that you and my son—“

Lily's insides constrict. As every warning light goes on inside her brain she sits down as calmly as she's able and says, the picture of concern, “A rumour, sir?”

“You don't have to call me – I mean, there's nobody else around. You can call me Neville. I was your brother's godfather way before I was your teacher.”

“Alright. Neville.” It feels weird on her tongue here at school, a push past the carefully delineated boundaries they have all established to divide Neville-the-almost-uncle in the holidays from Professor Longbottom at Hogwarts.

“So is true? Did he, that is, are you...?”

“Dating?” Lily so, so hopes this is the rumour he's heard. “No. Don't worry. We're just friends.”

Neville pushes a hand through his hair. There's grey amongst the thick blonde that Lily doesn't remember seeing before. The strip of lighter skin on his ring finger still stands out, a strange missing piece that seems to set him off-centre.

“No. The rumour is,” he says, and crosses his arms. A thick swallow, and then he comes out with it, “The rumour is you're pregnant, Lily. And it's Euan's fault.”

Lily's first instinct is to freeze. To clam up and let the ground swallow her. But the first instinct is never the right one. She pushes through it, reaches shakily for ridicule and forces a laugh out.

“Me and Euan? A baby? Jesus. No way. Bit hard to get knocked up by someone if you've never – well.”

“Well,” agrees Neville, and he's still looking at her suspiciously, but he's not quite so tight around the eyes, “you're sure?”

“I think I'd know.”

“Right. Okay. So it's just gossip, then? No truth to it? Because you could tell me, you know. I wouldn't – I'd like to help.”

“You really don't need to.” Lily stands, brushes off her skirt. “Can I go?”

He sighs and waves her off. Lily's halfway to the door when something occurs to her. She turns around and, measuredly, paces back across the greenhouse to stand in front of him. He's taken his glasses off to knuckle at the corner of one eye but he looks up, hands dropping weakly to his lap.

“Look,” she says, “I think you should know – if this were true, which it isn't, it wouldn't be Euan's fault. You do know that? He's a really... I mean, he's just a good person. He knows how to make good choices. I feel like you think this is him all over, getting someone pregnant, blah blah blah. But it's not. He never would. And if he did, he'd own up to it. He'd tell you to your face.”

Neville stares up at her, hands loose in his lap. He's leaning forwards unconsciously and Lily sees it all over him, the desperation to accept this as true.

“Trust me,” she says, and unearths a grin from somewhere, “you did good with him, Uncle Neville. If I did want to get pregnant, I could choose a lot worse.”

“Please don't get pregnant,” he tells her, but he's almost smiling, his eyes suspiciously full. Lily laughs, bright and high, and blows him a kiss before she whips round and sails out of the greenhouse. She keeps smiling until she's well out of sight, and then she wipes the grin off like last night's make-up.

Someone talked. Someone spilled. And if they talked enough that the teachers have heard, then every other student is going to know it too.

It's war.

-x-

To her own surprise, she believes Beth when she insists it wasn't her.

“She put itching powder in Seth Abbott's quidditch kit when she heard him laughing about it,” says Parks, hanging onto Lily's skirt like she's worried she might launch herself at Beth, “it wasn't her, Potter.”

“Alright,” says Lily, which seems to astonish everybody, especially Beth, “then who was it?”

It doesn't take long to unearth the culprit. Orion can't meet her eyes all evening, and when at last Lily gets him pinned in a corner of his dorm, Euan looking on, tight-lipped, the other Slytherin boys in their year hanging back uncertainly, Lily just has to look at him to know he did it.

“So,” she says, loudly for the benefit of her audience, “thought it would be funny, did you? To spread some ridiculous rumour about me and Euan? Come on then, Malfoy, what was it? Just a giggle? Or did you get some galleons for it from _Accio!_ or some other shit-rag?”

“I didn't,” Orion wheezes, “you said—“

Lily hexes him. A good one, deeply humiliating. Not bat bogeys, though. She has her own style. Then, just to drive the point home, she sinks a fist deep into his stomach, leaning in as he doubles over, gasping.

“You tell anyone who asks that you made it up,” she hisses, over the promising roiling noises in his gut, “or I will _end_ you.”

She pulls back, face cold as ice, and twists her wand between her fingers. His expression is cycling through pain to fear to uncertainty, like he can feel what's happening inside his stomach and knows it's not going to be good.

“If you can get him off the toilet long enough,” she tells his dormmates, “the Hospital Wing should have something to fix that.”

She doesn't wait to watch him dash to the bathroom, clutching at the back of his trousers. Euan follows her out in silence and, after a moment's hesitation, Ellery joins them.

“I think he just wanted the attention,” Ellery says miserably, halfway up the stairs. “That's why he told. He never has gossip first.”

“I don't care why he did it.” Lily levels a long at him, long and cold. “He did it. That's all that matters. He's not my friend anymore.”

She thinks this will send Ellery scurrying back downstairs. She has drawn the lines, and in this group, there is only one side Ellery Urquhart has ever stood on. She won't hold it against him, even. It's the same way she'd pick Yelena or Euan any time a schism opened, no matter what they had or hadn't done. It's just the way things are.

But then Ellery straightens his shoulders, looks her right in the eye.

“He shouldn't have told,” he tells her, the bravest she's ever seen him be. “I won't cut him out. But he was wrong, here.”

Euan nods, just slightly, and Ellery's gaze darts to him. Whatever approval he's looking for, he finds it, because his expression clears just a little. Lily studies him a moment longer, considering, and then sighs and turns to continue up the stairs. His steps and Euan's follow her all the way up to the common room.

“Don't deny it,” she tells the girls later that night, stood behind Winnie and brushing her long golden hair, “it'll just give it weight. Everyone tell a different lie every time someone asks. It was a half-centaur kid or it was Hagrid's baby or I got hold of a time turner and went back to fuck Voldemort. Whatever you can think of, however crazy, tell them that. Hopefully enough will start to go around that everybody'll get bored of trying to figure out what the truth is.”

“I thought you wanted people to know?” Ophelia says after a moment's silence, eyes wide. “Wasn't that the point?”

“Yeah. It got weird, though. I'll think of something else to go all shock-and-awe with.”

She puts Winnie's hair into a french braid and tweaks the end, smiling at her in the mirror. As the others retreat into their phones or laptops, she draws her up and snuggles down in the other girl's bed with her, the curtains drawn around them.

“So,” she says, eager to have something to think about other than the rumour racing through the Hogwarts hallways, “have you spoken to Hugo?”

Winnie blushes. “Yeah. He asked me... I mean, I think we're going to go together next Hogsmeade weekend.”

“And have you, y'know, again?”

The blush spreads even further, pinkening her neck and chest. It stirs something inside Lily, something sisterly and protective. It's all so new to Winnie, so strange and mysterious. Lily wishes that was her, still. That sex wasn't old news, bad news.

“No,” Winnie admits, ducking her head, “I want to... I want to wait. I want it to be special. Do you think he'll mind?”

“Well, I mean, I know Hugo's my cousin and therefore gross, but I don't, actually. It probably matters to him too. My aunt is all about thinking big decisions through. He's probably made fucking mind maps about it. Decision trees. I shouldn't worry. You'll probably be ready before he is.”

“I don't know.” Winnie is still blushing, bright and furious. “We hung out last weekend and when we were kissing, I felt his... y'know.”

Lily covers her ears, squealing. “That's my _cousin_!”

Winnie starts laughing at that, hard enough to make her cough, and that sets Lily off too, and Parks yanks back the curtains to find out what's amused them and can't help chuckling too at the sight of them howling, clutching their stomachs.

Later, though, Lily's lying in bed and turning this over in her mind. She allows herself to think of Louis, really think of him, for the first time since she saw him at Hoarwood in the holidays. Even after everything, her body tightens with longing and that strange hollowness around her midriff that's been plaguing her since the abortion wakes up again and stretches angrily.

She thinks then of Hugo and Fred. Tries to imagine kissing them, tries to imagine doing with them what she did with Louis. She can't. It feels almost as unsettling and unpleasant as imagining doing that with one of her brothers, enough to turn her stomach.

Palming her phone off her bedside table, she opens up her messages. The last text she sent Louis is still there, a stark reminder, dated December 20th. _see u at the Burrow x_

She lets herself type the message out. _hey just wondering why its so different when its you? why do I feel like this about u when I cant imagine this about hugo or fred without feeling sick? even now I keep thinking about yr hands on me, yr mouth. its killing me. I hope u havent heard the rumours going round about me + euan. if you have I hope u dont figure it out. Im sorry for all of it._

She double-taps, selects her text, deletes it all. And then, after a moment, she swipes left on his name in her inbox. Wipes the messages from existence.

When she puts the phone back down on her nightstand, she doesn't feel any better.

-x-

“Lily.” The voice saying her name is intimately familiar, but so unexpected in this setting that Lily still hasn't placed it by the time she turns around. It's a full week since the abortion and her mood has started to lift by inches, her stomach already tightening back up. It's like getting herself back when she didn't even realise she was gone. Her cousin Rose is standing behind her sofa in the Slytherin common room, almost hopping from foot-to-foot, her expression one of utter despair.

“What on Earth are you doing here?”

“I need your help.” She beckons, her eyes sliding sideways to Lily's friends nervously, all of them eyeing her up like a pack of lionesses with a prey animal in their sights. Lily and Rose have never got each other, and in the same way as Lily has absorbed her friends' dislikes without thinking, stoked bitter feuds with family members who have nothing to do with her, none of her little gang are any more sure about Rose than she is. But Rose has never asked for her help before. Not once.

So Lily says, “Alright then,” and gets up off the sofa without another word. She waves Yelena back when she makes to get up and follow, dogs Rose's steps out of the common room and into the dungeon corridor outside. She fixes her eyes on the red ball of the bun Rose has pulled her curly hair up into, the familiar shade catching the light the exact way hers does.

“So what's up? Come all the way down from Ravenclaw to give me another cryptic premonition?” She drifts a hand over an unlit brazier, shadowing Rose idly. Her cousin turns back, flames making her face ghoulish and remote. Lily can't help flinching back. Rose looks almost otherworldly, like this. Goddamnit, she's creepy sometimes.

“It's Louis.”

Lily arches an eyebrow, too practised to give in that easy. “Right. And I am helping with Louis because...?”

“I don't know. That's the truth. I just know that he's about to do something stupid, and you need to talk to him. If you don't, or if you say something wrong – please, Lily. Just trust me on this. I can't tell you why. But Aunt Fleur and Uncle Bill will be so upset, I just know it, and we need... the family needs to be strong. There's something else coming, something worse, and once it gets out, we need to all be together. Please.”

“Jesus.” Lily rolls her eyes but does pick up her pace. “If you've been doing tea leaves or some other nonsense in Divination—”

“Please, Lily.” Rose throws a wild glance over her shoulder. “I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important.”

“God, you're so weird,” says Lily, but she follows her anyway, all the way up to the ground floor and then out a side window to the grounds.

“Gryffindor changing rooms.” Rose points her to the distant stone building, tucked to one side of the pitch. “You don't have long.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Lily tells her snappily, but she draws her coat tighter around herself and sets off anyway. Her stupid heart is beating faster. She knows, deep down inside herself, that she's just been waiting for the excuse to talk to him. Whatever he's about to do, stopping it gives her the chance to stand close to him again.

Rose is right. She can hear someone in the Gryffindor changing rooms, the muffled rustling of things being packed away, the familiar brush of a broom's twigs against the concrete floor.

She pauses in the doorway. He's got a light on in the bathrooms so it won't escape the windows, and in the low amber glow she can see his exhausted pallor and the misery twisting his mouth down.

“Louis.”

At his name he startles, gaze swinging wildly around to land on her.

“What are you doing here?”

She flinches at the sharpness of his tone, reminds herself it's well deserved. Cautiously, she edges into the room, perches on one of the benches near the door.

“Rose had the idea you were about to do something stupid. Thought I might be able to talk you out of it, for some silly reason.”

“Yeah?” He stuffs a cloak into a duffel. “She was wrong about that.”

“Okay. So this is just a late-night outing, then?” Her eyes travel sideways, over the other bags piled up near his feet. Enough to fit all his belongings in.

“It's none of your business.” He's tense all over, the broad width of his shoulders almost one straight line, the veins on his forearms raised and angry. As he bends to pick up his shinpads, his hair falls into his eyes. He flicks it back irritably, and the movement puts Lily back in his line of sight.

She's just sitting, waiting. He's brewing with something, she can see it all over him. And if she's any judge of him at all, he won't be able to keep a lid on it. Not to her.

“You,” he says, stuffing the pads into the bag, “there's a rumour going round about you.”

“There are always rumours going around about me.”

“This one,” and he punctuates this with a thrust into the bag, the anger rising closer to his surface, “this one says you got knocked up. By your mate Longbottom.”

“Right. It's not true.”

“Yeah? Look me in the eyes and tell me that.”

Lily gets up, stalks over to him, grabs him by the sleeve. He ceases in his vicious movements, caught on her instantly, those blue eyes so very tired.

“I am not,” she says clearly, enunciating every syllable, “nor have I ever been, pregnant with Euan's kid.”

He searches her face, looks for any sign of a lie. Whatever he finds there, it makes his jaw clench.

“Alright. Now tell me you were never pregnant at all.”

She reaches for the lie, easy as breathing. But it doesn't come. His gaze is devouring her, sucking away the falsehoods so all she has left is the truth. Her breath quickens and catches in her throat. He reads it all over her. He jerks out of her grip like he's been scalded.

“I knew it.” It pistons out of him, half-gasp. “I knew, I knew. At Christmas, right? You knew by then. Jesus. That's why – oh, _fuck_.”

He drops to the bench, pushing his head hard into his hands. Lily just stands there, her hands clenched into fists, pressing them back into her stomach.

“Louis, I—“

“No.” His head comes up. He's feverish, burning. She's never seen him so angry. “Are you – what are we going to do about it?”

“There's nothing to do.” One of her hands twitches, miming pushing something away. “I dealt with it.”

“You... dealt with it.”

“Yeah. I went to a Muggle place, don't worry. Nobody will even know it happened.”

“You got rid of it.” His tone is flat. Lily can't get a read on it.

“Yeah. So you don't need to worry.”

“It didn't occur to you,” he asks slowly, and when his voice cracks, Lily reels backwards, “that maybe I might have wanted a say?”

“It's my body. It was my choice.”

At last, he drops that burning gaze. He raises a hand to his eyes, presses his knuckles there. “And it was my kid too, Lily.”

The retort on her tongue is too violent. She bites it back before it can escape. The silence that falls over them makes the changing room feel like a tomb.

At last, very carefully, Lily says, “I didn't want you to know.”

He shifts. “Obviously.”

“I knew you'd be all – I don't know, _noble_ about it. Like, what if you'd wanted to keep it? I couldn't—“

“I had the right,” he tells her, hoarse, “at least I had the right to know. To have a say, however small.” His jaw is clenched, eyes wild. He looks like she's never seen him look. Out of nowhere he says, “You told me you were on birth control.”

She rocks backwards, considering the lie. But she doesn't want to tell it. Suddenly, more than anything, she wants to tell him the truth.

“Yeah. I lied.”

“You – why? Wait, did you, Lily, did you _want_ this?”

“Not this.” She inches closer, hands out, imploring. “Never this. But – a baby. I was going to do an outrageous thing, remember? A terrible thing to distract them from you running away to play quidditch. I meant it, I wasn't bullshitting. I thought a baby would be just the trick.”

He jerks backwards so violently it startles her, brings her to a crashing halt. He's just staring at her, bewildered, trying to make sense of this.

“It wasn't – I had someone else in mind. But then, at that party, I was drunk and you told me about Victoire, and I was just so mad, this one thing I had I could do and she took it. Just like, like it was nothing. And you were there, and the way you were looking at me...”

He's still staring. Like he can't wrap his head around any of it. Now she's said it, now it's out there, Lily realises what an absolute fucking trainwreck it is. No wonder he's staring. It doesn't make any goddamn sense.

“Shit,” she grits out, helpless, pushing her hands into her hair. “Jesus, I sound like a fucking psychopath. Look, that's why I got in the shower that night, alright? I was mad and drunk and for whatever fucked-up reason I thought getting pregnant with your baby would be just the thing to really outdo everyone's expectations of me. I told myself it was to help you, to distract them from you so you could go play quidditch, but... fuck, obviously that had nothing to do with it. How could it, if it was you I was doing it with? I know it's... Jesus. Insane. I mean, fuck. Goddamnit. But it wasn't – after that, I swear, that's not what it was about.”

His eyes look so dark in this light. She can't read him at all.

“But it was after that,” he says slowly, gaze boring into her, “it was after the shower that you told me you were on birth control. So you were—“

“I don't know what the fuck I was doing, alright?” She paces from one side of the room and back again, tugging at her hair. “I know it looks like I have my shit together, okay, like I choose all of this, but I'm just lurching from crisis to crisis, riding it out and pretending it's what I want. I don't know how to stop. Like, I can have an idea, and objectively it's dumb, and I know that, but then it's like that part of me switches off. Like I kill it every time. And there's just the idiot left, the angry little kid who wants to fuck with a world who's never stopped fucking with me.”

“Oh boohoo.” He surges to his feet suddenly, crowds against her, backs her up until she hits the wall, eyes wide. “Your life's miserable, you have parents who love you, you're beautiful and you're smart and you have insane fucking friends who'd throw themselves in front of Unforgivable Curses for you but it's all too much. Is that it? Is that about how it goes?”

She throws her hands up, shoves at his chest. It's hard beneath her touch, so tense she could strike a match on him and he'd fire off like a rocket.

“It's—“

“Too impossible for anybody to ever understand what you _feel_ , huh?” His breath is hot on her face. “Like, maybe you could actually just tell someone what the fuck goes on in that head, but instead you wall it off to be as cryptic as fucking possible, and then complain that nobody gets it. Jesus fucking Christ, Lily.” His voice breaks, washes over her. He's got tears in his eyes. “Do you have any fucking idea what you've done to me?”

“Louis,” she breathes, and then he's kissing her, hungry, desperate, half devouring her. He shoves her coat off her shoulders and she rips at his sweater, tugging hard until he lifts his arms, breaking out of the kiss only long enough to get it off him. She's still in her school uniform under the coat; he just rips at her shirt, the buttons pinging off in every direction.

She's tugging at his belt as they tumble to the floor, the tiles cold beneath her spine. He shoves into her fast, dirty, and she expects a burn. But it doesn't come. She's ready for him, the same way she was that October morning on the Quidditch pitch, the same way she has been every time.

His breath heaves in her ears, every other exhale ragged with a groan, and Lily claws at him, dragging herself closer. He grunts, changes the angle just a little, and suddenly he's seated deep inside her. It feels uncannily right. Lily wants to slow it down, to stop time entirely, but he's relentless, driving into her, and her orgasm takes her so much by surprise she gasps into it, tripping and falling over the edge like throwing herself in front of a train.

“Oh fuck, Lily, fuck.” He jerks against her and his teeth find her collarbone, sinking in as his hips stutter forwards helplessly. When he sinks down against her, Lily has to blink hard up at the ceiling, running her hands so lightly up and down his back, embalmed by his warm weight against her and his breath at the crook of her neck.

He draws away all too soon, scrubbing his wrist across his eyes. By the time she catches up with the situation he's already standing, buttoning his jeans, buckling his belt.

“Wait,” she says, helpless, “just—“

He looks at her, still sprawled on the floor, her skirt hiked around her waist and her shirt hanging open.

“You were wrong,” he says, low and sad and rough, “what you said about me, forever ago. I'm leaving carnage behind me. And I don't care, as long as I'm leaving this too.”

The ring of his footsteps against the tile is so final as he walks away, his bags floating behind him. Lily thinks about getting up and running after him but the idea dissipates as quickly as it came. With shaking hands, she pushes her skirt down, ties her shirt off, doesn't even bother trying to charm the buttons back on. By the time Rose comes nervously in, eyes darting everywhere, she's got herself standing, wrapped in her cloak.

“How did it go?” asks Rose, and Lily just looks at her. And then she's crying, so fast and so sudden it genuinely takes her aback. Rose doesn't seem surprised. Her shoulders slump but she steps forwards, wraps her arms around Lily, holds her close. Lily doesn't think they've ever hugged before, at least not since either of them were old enough to remember. Rose smells of salt and sage, like one of those crystal shops Clary likes dragging them to when they don't head her off fast enough. She's sturdier than Lily expected, solid and warm. Lily puts her face into her shoulder and sobs. They're almost exactly the same height. It's the strangest thing.

“It's okay,” Rose lies to her, soothing a hand over her hair, “it's all going to be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. The good news (or bad news I suppose, depending on how you're feeling about this fic overall) is that my wonderful friend [Becca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aebbe/pseuds/aebbe) has helped me talk myself into expanding this fic out, because I have ended up not wanting to leave Lily and Louis like this at this age, so I'm figuring out a new extended plotline and will update the chapter count when I've sorted it.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The news about Louis leaving spreads fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I've committed to the long-haul version of this. Not going to lie, I'm kind of excited. I'm sincerely grateful to all of you who've expressed enthusiasm about a longer story, and I really hope you like coming along for the ride.
> 
> Trigger warnings this chapter for: underage drinking, references to drug use, references to abortion.

Louis' dormmates bring the news to breakfast. It gets to the Slytherin table as Lily's reaching for a slice of toast she's not going to eat.

“Holy _fuck_ ,” says Parks, eyes wide as she plonks herself down on the bench, “Lily, shit, did you hear? Your cousin's only done a runner.”

Lily is still feeling tight and raw with crying, her face presentable thanks only to a long time in front of the mirror and some charms Clary slipped to her for cleaning up after tears.

She makes herself take a bite of toast. It tastes like nothing. “Which cousin?”

“Louis! Holy fuck. I mean, literally just packed his bags last night and fucking walked out. Where the fuck's he going?”

Lily lifts a shoulder, careless. Yelena is watching her narrowly from across the table, picking at a grapefruit.

“I thought you guys were friends now?”

“Apparently not.” Lily swallows the toast and then swallows again when it doesn't go down properly. She washes it down with a sip of orange juice and does not, under any circumstances, meet Euan's eyes.

After third period Care of Magical Creatures, sucking on a finger scratched by the monster of the week, Lily quite literally runs into her brother. He's waiting for her in the Entrance Hall, glowering. Sobriety always intensifies Albus more than she likes, if she's honest, makes him more cutting when he's in a mood to be – and he's almost always in a mood to be.

“Hey.” He grabs her by the arm when she makes to sail past him with Ophelia and Parks. “We need to talk.”

Reluctantly, Lily waves her friends on. “I'll catch you guys later. And you,” this to Albus, “let me fucking go.”

He does, flexing his fingers, green eyes bloodshot and narrowed. He tilts his head and melts backwards, drawing her into one of the bare little rooms that never seems to get used for anything. Lily casts a muffling spell out of habit; too many years of eavesdroppers looking for Potter gossip to let this conversation happen without one.

“So Louis' gone.” He pushes one hand into his hair, thrusting it back from his face. It makes him look much older. “And I've just endured phone calls from Mum, Dad and James trying to get me to tell them why. Obviously I said I've got no bloody clue, do I, it's not like he ever talked to me. Thinks he's so much better with his fucking Quidditch.”

Lily can't tell where this is going and it's got her on edge, skin tight. She tracks him with her eyes as he paces back and forth, her body held still as a taut bowstring.

“But the thing is, right,” says Albus, and stops dead in front of her, “the thing I didn't tell them is I'm starting to have a bit of an inkling. Because I saw him on his way out last night with all those fucking bags, and I asked him what the hell was up. And he said if I really wanted to know I should ask you.”

Lily doesn't bother dissembling. It's never worked on Al. James will eat up any lie told right but the only way out of this kind of conversation with Albus is to divert and distract, to make it hard enough work for him to get to the truth that he loses interest before he arrives at it.

“Well,” she demands, and folds her arms, “what do you think is going on?”

“I've been thinking about this. I've had a few hours head start on everyone else, remember. And I've been thinking particularly about that day he came over to the house, you know? The look on your face when I walked in. I don't know, man, the whole thing was just so off. And there's all these bullshit rumours Longbottom knocked you up, except I'd know if you two had ever fucked, your whole vibe is so weird that it would be pretty obvious if you did that. But you would cover for each other for anything, fuck, for murder. So, like, not the biggest stretch that he'd take credit if you were preggo and you didn't want anyone finding out who the actual dad is.”

Lily realises, distantly, that she's started to shake a little. She's grabbing frantically for the diversions but they're not coming, her tongue like lead in her mouth.

“But the thing that got me, right.” Al steps forward, leans down, peers right into her eyes. “The thing that got me is the way he looked when Solokov first told us the rumour about you being pregnant. I was thinking, oh, fuck, here we go again, another bullshit story about you. But his face – fuck, the _dread_ on him, Lily. He knew it was true straight away.”

She can't speak. Can't think. Her chest is tighter than a vice, the air sliding down her throat like knives. Albus sees it all over her. The truth.

“Oh, fuck,” he says, and peels away, pressing his hands to his head, “fuck, Lily, you goddamn fucking _moron_.”

“It's not,” she manages to gasp out, “it's not, I mean, it's fine. I dealt with it. It's all gone, it doesn't matter now.”

“It doesn't matter? For fuck's sake, you fucked our fucking _cousin—_ “

“Yeah. Past tense. It was just a stupid thing, a nothing, it didn't even mean anything. I was just in the mood to do something outrageous, you know, feel wild.” She trails off. Al is shaking his head.

“You fucking liar.”

Defensive anger starts to creep up Lily's limbs, heat up her torso, ease her chest open a little.

“What do you want from me? So I fucked up, big whoop, like you don't fuck up all the time. I saw you and Daisy again at Christmas, even after Dad told you to leave her be. At least I'm not high five days out of seven, at least Mum and Dad don't have to have worried little chats about checking me into rehab after school finishes—“

“They never,” he spits, but he looks uncertain suddenly, the ground shifting beneath him, “they don't have a clue.”

“Bullshit, of course they know. They fucking love us, Al, they notice everything.”

“Not everything.” He sounds very hollow. “They didn't notice this. You and him.”

“There wasn't anything to notice.”

“Liar,” he says again, abruptly weary. “God. I can't fucking believe this. Where's he even gone?”

“The Tutshill Tornados. Or the Appleby Arrows.”

“What? Why?”

Lily sags, lets her shoulders curl inwards. Admits defeat. “They both offered him contracts before Christmas. But he had to take them before the beginning of the new season. I'm assuming he's gone to Tutshill, they offered him really good money.”

“The fact you even know that,” says Al, but doesn't finish the thought. He sighs. “Jesus. Everyone's gonna freak.”

“I know.”

“Still,” he says, sounding a little brighter, “hey, good news for you. This little baby drama will already be forgotten.”

“Yeah.” Lily pulls her bag higher on her shoulder, brushes a stray tear away. “Lucky me.”

Albus' moods have been mercurial since he first came to Hogwarts and learned what people were willing to do to brush up against Harry Potter's fame. He's veered from elation to fury in less than a second more times than Lily could ever count. She watches it now, the moods flashing across his face, his frustration and disgust with her warring against his fear for their family and his inevitable amusement at the whole mess of it, her and Louis and now Louis leaving.

“Does James know?”

Lily sighs. “I don't think so. He thought there was something going on, but I headed him off. He won't say anything, anyway.”

“You sure?” Al looks genuinely concerned about this. “He gets those weird moments of nobility every now and again, remember.”

“I've got something on him,” Lily says, so weary, “he won't dare.”

“What?”

“Can't tell you. Wouldn't be worth anything as a nuclear deterrent otherwise, would it?”

“Fuck. I hate how many secrets we have.”

“I'll tell you all mine if you tell me yours,” says Lily, and her mouth twists up into a wry and miserable smile as he just shakes his head, defeated.

“What d'you think Aunt Fleur and Uncle Bill will do?”

“I think they'll be furious,” she says, winding the strap of her satchel around her arm. “And disappointed and hurt, like he's done it to them on purpose. But then they'll forgive him, because they want him to be happy.”

“You think he'll be happy? After this?”

She swallows. “I do. Eventually.”

“Will you?”

Lily meets his eyes. They're so very green. He's looking at her intently, critically, trying to read the answer on her face before she says it.

“Nah,” she tells him truthfully, “I don't reckon so. But that's just being me, isn't it? Being us. Nothing special about it. Nothing unique to this.”

“Sometimes I imagine how we'd be if Dad was normal,” says Al, picking at a fingernail. “Like, just every now and again. If he was never anybody at all, if Voldemort never happened, or happened to someone else. I reckon we'd be so happy.”

“I don't know.” Lily closes her eyes. “I think we're inextricable. You, me, James – we exist because of what happened to Dad. And Mum, too. We're a product of it all. We wouldn't be us without it.”

“You're probably right. I can't be arsed with philosophy, anyway. I think I need to go get really drunk to help me deal with this.”

Lily hesitates. And then: “Can I come?”

So they go together, lessons ditched for the rest of the day, eeling away from the prying questions about Louis as they slip over the grounds and through the fence near where the Forbidden Forest is slowly colonising the lakeshore. Albus apparates them to some grubby alley in Belfast, transfigures their uniforms and hair until they look unlike themselves enough to get away with.

And then he takes Lily to a little pub on a side street, Muggle only, and they talk for longer than she can remember talking in years. She tells him about the determination to outrage, about her fury with Victoire, but not about her strange yearning to keep the baby, to let everything play out after all. In return, he tells her about the drugs he takes, the glittering way they drag him away from his life and into a place where who he is doesn't matter and where his surname means nothing at all.

“I actually think,” he admits to her four pints and two tequila shots in, squinting at her from under a newly brown fringe, “like, I know my whole brand is not giving a shit about the future, etc—”

“I'll drink to that,” Lily cuts in, and he pauses to join her, knocking back the end of his pint and waving at the bartender for another one.

“—Anyway, yeah, so, not my thing? Except I've been hanging out with Pucey since you and Scorpius, whatever, and he's super into potions. Like, scary into it. And I went to Potions club with him the other day because I literally had fuck-all else to do, and they were experimenting, you know? And I just started fucking around, used an old textbook from the fifties or something and riffed off it.”

“Can you get to the point of this story quicker? I'm too drunk to pay attention for this long.”

Albus kicks her under the table, hard enough to make her swear, and it's only the Trace that stops her from pulling out her wand and hexing him for it, the Muggles all around them be damned.

“So,” he says, settling back down, gesturing at her with his glass, “anyway, my potion turned out to be the goddamn business. I thought Gehrig was going to wet himself. Turns out maybe I'm good at this?”

Lily sucks in a mouthful of beer, rolls its yeastiness around her mouth, swallows.

“Sorry. So you brewed one good potion? That's your epiphany?”

“Yeah.”

“God. I was expecting something a bit more enlightening. Like you're going to give up the drink and drugs and go into research or something.”

“Hey, fuck you. Least I didn't shag our cousin.”

“Oh, get fucked,” says Lily, and sticks her tongue out at him.

Later, wandering around looking for a quiet spot to apparate back from, jostling each other as they both weave, too drunk to walk straight, Albus says, “I think it might be something, is all. The potions. Like, maybe I can find a way to make things that make me feel the way the drugs feel without losing my mind. I don't know. Forget about everything without... forgetting.”

Lily sighs, loops her arm into his. “I bet the Muggles have something for that already. They've got some crazy shit.”

“How would you know? You don't have, like, a single Muggleborn friend.”

“Not my fault the bloody Sorting Hat chose to be a little purist my year, is it? Anyway, we have got a Muggleborn in Slytherin, so screw you. James Portus. He dorms with Euan.”

“And I bet you've spoken, like, three words to him the entire time you've been at school.”

Lily doesn't argue with that. It's nothing to do with blood status, nor have any of her decisions about people been based on blood status – how could they be, with a family like hers? It's just that Portus didn't seem to like her or the other girls that much back at the beginning of first year, and by Christmas they were tight as ticks, them and Euan and Orion and Ellery, and there wasn't space for anybody else. Lily couldn't tell Albus five interesting things about Portus now if he asked, when she could wax lyrical about any of the others for days. _Possessive_ , her dad had warned her about her friendship group, back before she was old enough to understand what he was getting at. _You have to be careful with groups like that. They're lovely while you're in them, but if you end up on the outside for whatever reason, it's like torture._

Lily's jaw sets. She's looking forward to Orion finding out what that's like.

Her dad had told her to keep her options open. Lily had promised, and then never bothered. Why would she need to, when she has the friends she has? They're perfect, each and every one of them. An unbreakable unit.

“—and anyway,” Albus is saying, his hip bumping hers, “what have the Muggles got that we don't?”

“Decent medical care, for a start.” Lily spots a promising-looking alley and starts to drag him towards it. “You know, if I'd gone to a Healer to deal with my, um, issue, it would have been like a full week in bed under hospital supervision? I looked it up. It's barely improved in decades. Blood everywhere, full-body misery. Whereas Muggles, right, with the Muggle thing it was literally just two pills. Little swallows, that's it. And then a few hours of cramps, and I was done.”

Albus has slowed, expression twisted. Lily turns to look at him, curious.

“What?”

“So it didn't – it didn't hurt?”

“Oh, no. It hurt like fuckery. But better a few hours than a few days, right? And better pain than a baby, in the end.” It's easy to be blasé about it now, here in a strange city, Albus not looking like Albus and her not looking like her. Beer and a couple of tequila shots to take the edge off, smooth away the hurt.

“So, like, barely anything.” Albus is looking hard down at his feet, and for the first time in a while Lily remembers how young they both are, still teenagers, still trying to figure all of this bullshit out. For a moment, she wants desperately to tell him the truth. That she has this ache around her middle all the time now, every day. A hollowness. A lack. But that she doesn't regret the choice she made, doesn't regret picking herself over a hypothetical child, doesn't regret pushing Louis away for all that it's perhaps the worst thing she's ever done to herself. Before, she didn't know you could be sad and angry about doing something, but still be glad you've done it.

“Oh, yeah,” she lies, light as a feather, “like, nothing at all. Already forgotten.”

“Cool.” Albus brings them to a halt in the darkness of the alley, his hair and face already fading back to himself. “That's good, then. Because, you know, like, whatever I can do, if I can help...”

“Yeah,” says Lily, and grips his hand ready to apparate. “Sure. Course.”

She will never go to Albus for help, of course, and she thinks he knows it too. But now he's said it, now he's put it out there, there's something about the possibility of it that makes her feel better. Just a little. She squeezes his hand and he almost smiles at her, dark and conflicted, and then he's pulling them away back to Hogwarts.

  
  


-x-

  
  


They call all the cousins to the Headmaster's office the next day. Lily sits in the corridor outside, kicking one leg against her chair, slumped down and trying to will her hangover away through sheer force.

Lucy is in the chair next to her, tall frame folded over, head nodding forwards. Someone's yanked at her tie and pulled it tight into a tiny little knot, a stupid joke people do to each other all the time, but Lucy being Lucy it's probably been that way for days and she's just been wriggling it over her head at night and back on in the mornings to avoid going to the effort of having to actually undo it.

Rose is on Lucy's other side, silent. There's blood in the side of her thumbnail where she's been picking at it. Lily's been thinking a little bit about what Rose said to her two nights ago, and since Albus is still up in Headmaster Baqri's office being pumped for information, she figures now might as well be the time she asks.

“Hey,” she says, her voice echoing down the deserted corridor, “Rose?”

Rose makes a non-committal noise, recrossing her legs in the other direction.

“What you said to me the other night, that thing about something worse coming – was that for real?”

“Mm,” says Rose, not much of an answer, but she's started worrying at that hangnail again, so Lily reckons she's onto something.

“Was it, um,” she tries delicately, glad she's got the shield of Lucy between them, “it wasn't anything to do with me, was it?”

Rose blows out the tiniest little laugh. It doesn't sound very amused.

“No. Nothing to do with you. No Potters involved at all, actually.”

“Jesus.” Lucy has been listening, although she's still got her eyes closed. “That's got to be a first.”

Lily elbows her and she sinks into it, grinning.

“So who is it, then?”

There's a creak as Rose leans back in her chair. “You seem very sure I'm right about it happening.”

“Well, to be fair, Divination is bullshit,” says Lily easily, almost her usual bolshy self, “but you do kind of have a creepy way of knowing stuff. Like, do you remember you said to me in the summer I was going to do something that was going to make me particularly miserable this year?”

“She said that?” Lucy opens her eyes and sits up straighter. “Jeez, Rose, barrel of laughs, you are.”

“I don't remember that,” parries Rose nervously, twisting to face them both. “When did I say that?”

“Oh, man, you were _gone_.” Lily grins. “It was Dom's birthday and she just kept giving you cocktails that were, like, ninety percent alcohol. Vic nearly took you to St Mungo's for alcohol poisoning.”

“Oh, yeah.” Rose frowns. “I remember Mum and Dad's faces the next day when I came downstairs.”

“Aunt Hermione told Mum you were sick all over the stairs,” Lily tells her brightly, “good on you. It's good to do the crazy shit every now and again, it helps them realise how lucky they are you're well behaved the rest of the time.”

“That your approach, Lil?” Lucy smirks at her, and Lily smirks right back.

“Not sure anyone would use the adjective 'well behaved' to describe me. Anyway, look, back to the point. You were right about me doing something more stupid than usual. So I guess it's not impossible you could be right about something bad being about to happen.”

“What did you do?” Lucy wants to know, and Lily just waves her down.

“Nothing worth telling. So go on, Rose, what is it? What did the tea leaves tell you?”

“It wasn't the tea leaves.” Rose slumps back against the wall. She's got her thick hair only half-up today, and the fluffy red curls squish up against the stone, bright and coppery in the torchlight.

“Whatever. What was it?”

“You'll find out soon enough.”

Lily's ready to push her further, but the distant sounds of footsteps turn all their heads, and soon Roxanne appears, hurrying down the hallway towards them.

“Crap,” she says, stuffing a book into her bag, “did I miss it? Bloody Taggart wouldn't let me out of Charms.”

“Just don't ask, Rox.” Lucy has slid back down in her chair, ready to snooze again. “That's always been your issue.”

“You are a goody two-shoes, Rox,” Lily tells her good-naturedly, and hooks a chair in closer with her leg for her to sit in. “You don't even have OWLs like me or NEWTs like Rose this year. Take a leaf out of Lucy's book. Skip a few lessons.”

“Some of us,” says Roxanne, collapsing into the chair with a smile, “aren't such brainiacs we can get away with skipping class.”

Lily makes a _psh_ noise, and even Rose almost smiles at that.

“Lucy, brainiac? Please.”

Lucy shifts in her chair, grinning broadly.

“Actually,” she informs them all, with not a little smugness, “me and Minnie are going down to Cambridge in a few weeks for a meeting with a Muggle physics professor at the university. We found an error in one of their equations.”

“I don't know what half of those words mean,” says Lily, as both Rose and Roxanne make noises indicating suitable awe.

“I just,” starts Roxanne, and then the staircase in the wall opposite them starts to move, and they all sit up straighter as Albus shuffles out of the alcove.

“Lily,” he says grumpily, ruffling his hair, “you next. I'm on Hugo duty, anyone seen him?”

“Yeah.” Rose rolls her eyes. “Emergency quidditch team meeting, apparently. I saw him on his way there. They're in a total panic.”

“Fucking typical,” Al grouches. “He got his phone on him?”

“No, he doesn't like risking it getting confiscated. None of us should carry them, really,” says Rose. Lucy, Lily and Albus trade a look, narrow-eyed.

“Don't suppose anyone wants to volunteer to trudge all the way up there and fetch him up here? No?” Albus looks at them all hopefully.

"You're the only Gryffindor here, pal," says Lily, grinning, "and anyway, we've all got dates with the headmaster.”

Al throws a swearword at her, and she leaves them all bickering about it as she steps onto the moving staircase and begins the familiar climb to the headmaster's office.

Under other circumstances, she thinks she'd quite like Baqri's office. It's fastidiously neat, walls and walls of bookcases, three big leather chairs facing his wide ebony desk and a set of matching, blue velvet couches tucked away to one side. They're useful, those couches. If you go in and you're beckoned that way, it's a casual chat, and they don't have anything serious on you. If you're summoned to the leather chairs and the desk, trouble's afoot. It was the leather chairs Lily was pointed to last May, when she and Scorpius got caught _in flagrante_ in that empty Charms classroom.

Today, she steps into the room and Baqri is not sat behind his desk.

“Miss Potter.”

She swings right and sees, to her deep relief, Baqri and Neville seated in the couch area.

“Hello, sirs,” she says brightly, and floats over.

“Lily,” says Neville, deeply disapproving, “That skirt should be at least two inches longer.”

“Oh.” She glances down and then back up, as innocently as she can manage. “I'm really sorry. It's an old one – I've been growing a lot the last few months and my new ones are in the wash. I'll have them back by tomorrow, I promise.”

“Thank goodness then,” says Baqri jovially, picking his wand up off the coffee table, “that I'm so practiced in clothing alteration charms.”

“Oh, no—“ is all Lily gets out before he's uttered the charm and her skirt has inched its way back down her thighs, coming to a rest just on her knees. Only long practice keeps the surliness out of her voice as she says, “Thank you, sir.”

“You're welcome, Miss Potter. Take a seat. Would you like some tea?”

“No thank you.” Lily slips onto the sofa opposite them, laying her hands carefully in her lap. “Am I in trouble?”

“Not this time.” Baqri settles back, hands folded on his stomach. He oscillates between robes in bright and splendid silks and smart, sober black ones, on no kind of pattern that Lily has been able to determine. Today he's in an orange and red ensemble so beautiful Lily kind of wants to try the colour scheme for herself. He's smiling at her kindly – more kindly than she deserves, given the sorts of conversations he's been forced to have to and about her over the years – and so she smiles back before she thinks twice about it.

“We're worried about Louis.” Neville sits forward, elbows propped on his knees. “Nobody knows where he's gone or why. We're hoping you can help us.”

“I'm really sorry, Professor, but I'm not going to be much use. I don't know Louis that well.” The lie comes out of Lily as easily and smoothly as the truth. She lifts a shoulder in a regretful shrug. “I wish I could help. I bet Aunt Fleur's making herself sick.”

“She spent most of yesterday here at the castle with her husband,” agrees Baqri. He's watching Lily carefully, and she knows well enough by now to be cautious of that sharp brown stare. He disguises his perceptiveness well, but she's fallen foul of it enough times to have learnt her lesson. “There was a suggestion that you and he had grown a little closer the last year or so. We hoped he might have confided in you?”

“Sorry.” Lily holds his gaze, placid and opaque. “I mean, like, we did talk and stuff, but only boring things, you know? Nothing like this. I had no idea. I don't think he'd have told me if he wanted to, anyway. Most of my family don't trust me with secrets.”

“I would think you're very good at keeping secrets,” says Baqri, just a little pointed, and Lily just keeps that innocent smile in place and says nothing. That's clearly a statement to which there's no sensible answer, and she's too practiced to walk into it.

“Lily. We know you missed lessons yesterday afternoon. We thought you might have helped him go, maybe, or gone to visit him?”

She doesn't flicker. “I'm sorry about that, sir. I was feeling rough so I had to go back to bed. I know I should have gone to the Hospital Wing, but Madam Ullner always just gives us a potion and makes us go back to class, and I couldn't face it. My friends can vouch for me.”

And they will of course, the lie as ready on their tongues as it would be on hers for them, whatever they needed, whatever they'd done. Neville's face has pinched up, just a bit, and Lily knows he knows it too. He's experienced it both in the role of teacher and father, all the times they've been at Euan's house in the holidays and he's stopped one of them to ask what they're planning for that night, whether Euan has been raiding his alcohol cabinet again, and they've sworn up and down it's not true, they're just planning a camp-out with marshmallows and ginger ale.

“Lily, please.” Neville leans in. “He's your family. You need to help him. Protecting him, hiding him, that's not what he needs right now.”

“I honestly, truly, don't know where he is.” And it's not even a lie, not technically. He didn't tell her where he was going. She doesn't even know which team he chose in the end. He could be anywhere at all. But the way Neville's looking at her, the kindness Baqri has shown her despite the trouble she's caused him, they tug away at her. So she swallows, presses her knees together. “Um, but... Aunt Fleur and Uncle Bill, they should talk to Victoire.”

“Victoire?”

“Yeah. She'll... I just have a feeling she'll be able to help.”

Baqri sits back, looking at her carefully. “Victoire. Alright.”

“Great.” Lily jiggles her knees, glances up at the enormous clock on the wall. “Can I go? I have Potions.”

“Yes, alright.” Baqri stands to show her out, his robes flowing around him. “But if you think of anything else – anything at all – you can come and tell either of us, or your head of house, alright? It'll be treated in the strictest confidence.”

“Of course, sir,” says Lily, hopping up, the picture of innocence. “Thank you. Bye, Professor Longbottom.”

“See you in Herbology,” he says. “Can you send Rose up on your way out, please?”

“Of course.” With that, Lily sweeps from the room. She feels a little bad, almost. The headmaster and Neville, they want so badly to believe the best of all the kids at Hogwarts. It makes it so much easier to lie to them.

“Rose, you're up.” She hits the corridor at the bottom of the stairs and bounces over to her cousins. “Can you maybe not mention our little adventure the other night?”

Rose rolls her eyes, already on her feet. “Do I look like an idiot?”

“What adventure?” Roxanne wants to know, and Lily just grins in her most maddening and cryptic way.

“Top secret government stuff. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.”

“For God's sake,” says Rose, and disappears up the stairs.

“Right, gotta go.” Lily hauls her bag out from under the chair she'd been sat on and hooks it over her shoulder. “Some of us have got OWLs to prep for.”

“Sucks to suck,” Lucy calls after her, and Lily turns to flip both middle fingers at her as she sashays away down the hall.

She waits until she's around the corner, and then she pulls her wand out and undoes the lengthening charm Baqri did on her skirt. She ducks into a bathroom to check the look of it and, well pleased, bashes her way back out.

It's armour, that's what they don't understand. Everything about how she looks – the length of her hair, the black of her mascara, the fit of her shirt and the way her tie sits, it all adds up to make the picture of Lily Potter. When she looks like the person people expect, it's so much easier to be her. To put all the pain and yearning and regret aside and just be Lily, careless and carefree, a little fool who loves to party and do stupid things and outrage as many people as she can manage. That Lily is simple and straightforward. And if she tries to be her for long enough, eventually she'll become her all the way through.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily starts to think about the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Twenty seven million years later, an update. I can only apologise it took so long, I hit some _deep_ writer's block. But my wonderful friend [Pearl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginnyweasleys/pseuds/ginnyweasleys) helped me figure out the way forwards for this fic, and I'm excited to bring it to life!

Hogwarts settles into a weird kind of rhythm after that. It soothes away Lily's raw edges, helps her steady out a little. They track Louis down after four or five days, already installed in a fancy flat in Chepstow thanks to the Tornadoes, just a half-hour walk from the team's training ground at Tutshill. Lily doesn't get any of the details, but according to Al – who heard it from James, who heard it from Teddy, who heard it from Dom, who was there with Victoire and their parents – there was a lot of yelling and a lot of crying, and Louis standing stoically in the middle of the chaos and saying he was sorry, but he was of-age and it was his decision.

“Uncle Bill did lots of shouting, apparently,” Al tells her over breakfast, sloping over from the Gryffindor table to update her. “And then Louis told him it was quote-unquote not very Cool Dad of him, and he should think about hanging up his dragonskin boots if he was going to be so ordinary, so Uncle Bill started shouting even louder and the neighbours came and made a noise complaint.”

“Jeez.” Parks is listening in, chewing loudly on a bacon sandwich. “Which one's your Uncle Bill, Potter?”

“Tall one,” Yelena tells her vaguely, waving a hand around her ears. “All the gold hoops.”

“Yup.” Clary is nudging a glass of orange juice from one hand to another along the table-top, giving Albus an inscrutable look. “Super hot. With the scars, and everything.”

“ _I've_ got scars,” says Albus quickly, and pushes the sleeve of his sweater up to show where Lily got him with a piece of accidental magic aged nine. “Am I hot?”

“Do you want to be hot?” enquires Clary, eyes hooded and inviting, and Lily very deliberately reaches out and draws a toast mountain in between them.

“Don't be gross. Everyone says James is the hottest, anyway.”

Albus looks outraged at that, eyes wide, but even Clary's pushed the toast aside and started nodding.

“It's true.” Yelena reaches out and pats Albus on the hand, somehow patronising and maternal despite being two years his junior. “I wouldn't sweat it. It's the shoulders, you know.”

“What about the shoulders?”

“They're so broad.” Ophelia has gone dreamy, her attention far enough away that she's forgotten to be shy around Al. “Just, like, he would take such good care of you, you know? Protect you.”

“Ugh, ugh, ugh.” Lily does a full-body shudder and gets up. “I'm leaving if you're all going to be disgusting.”

“Sorry, Lily.” Beth arches her back into a stretch, catlike, and doesn't even try to pretend it's not for Albus' benefit. “We can't help it if your brother is hot.”

“Not you, dipshit,” Lily tells Al, and flicks his ear to stop him looking at Beth. “Come on. I'm not leaving you here with these hyenas.”

“I hear you've left Hugo, though,” he says as he gets up, and Winnie chokes into her cornflakes.

He's still laughing when Lily parts with him at the top of the hall. She does the thing with his tie, tugging it hard enough to yank him forwards, and he shoves her off with a groan of irritation.

“You're the worst.”

“Yup.”

And with that, she leaves him to it. She doesn't have anywhere to be, really, but lately she's been enjoying solitude a little more than usual. Up until now, she's stuffed every second of every day at Hogwarts with her friends, never to be found without them unless she's with a boy or a cousin or somebody else to fill the silence.

But she's got into it. The quiet. When she's by herself, she can unpick the sadness from the little box she keeps it in and nurse it against her chest, let it dig its roots inside her until that's all she is, just a walking ball of sorrow. There's something oddly addictive about how much it hurts.

She does it now. Tucks her arms around herself and begins the long, slow climb towards the Transfiguration classroom, torturing herself by thinking of Louis that night in the changing rooms, the look on his face, the depth of his grief when he understood all the ways she'd hurt them both.

She's still feeling hollow, but every time she does this she feels like it improves by tiny increments, one agonising inch at a time. Maybe this is healthy. Catharsis. Maybe it's the worst thing she could be doing. She can't tell the difference anymore.

For all her slow pace, she still arrives at Transfiguration twenty-five minutes early. She slumps onto one of the stone benches outside, feet kicking idly against the floor, and ignores her robe as it slips down her shoulders and bares her sweater.

“Miss Potter?”

She blinks herself back into focus. Wainwright is standing in front of her, a mug of coffee in one hand and a quizzical expression on his face.

“Oh. Hi, sir.”

“What are you doing here?”

She frowns. “My lesson. At nine.”

“Right.” He shakes back his sleeve, studies his watch. “You're early.”

Lily gives him a very narrow look. “Sorry. I didn't realise that was illegal.”

“No, no. I just – you've never been early. Ever.”

Lily realises that he thinks she's up to something. He's tense, knuckles whitening around his mug, jaw set. He's got stubble growing and it's coming in patchy, hints of grey among the brown already. She has no idea how old he is. She's curious about it suddenly, but only from a distance, like she's scrutinising her own feelings through water.

“Don't worry.” She tilts her head back, lets it thunk against the stone wall. “I'm not here to be a pest. I just didn't have anywhere else to be.”

“Oh. Alright.” He hesitates, bouncing on the balls of his feet. And then he says, “You might as well come in, then. You can help me put the goblets out.”

“Oh, ugh, we're not doing water goblets into animals again?”

“Sorry to disappoint.” He grins, eyes bright blue behind his glasses. “Unfortunately some of your classmates seem to be struggling to grasp the fundamentals.”

“Well thank god for the overachievers like me, right, sir?” Lily pushes herself off the bench and follows him into the classroom. She notes his eye roll, but he's smiling when he does it, like they have a shared joke. Lily surprises herself by liking the idea of that. God. No wonder the suck-ups do it. External validation from an authority figure is such an easy thing to build your self-worth on.

She pulls her wand out of her bag and flicks it, levitating the row of goblets into the air. Wainwright's puttering around at the front, setting out his mug and shuffling through a stack of papers. He pauses to watch her settle the last few goblets down.

“Nice handle you've got on that,” he comments thoughtfully. “Are you taking Charms next year?”

“I haven't decided.” Lily plops her bag down on her usual desk at the back and stows her wand away again.

“Have you decided on _any_ NEWTs yet?”

“Care Of, obviously, because Hagrid will cry if I don't. But otherwise no.”

“Lily. You should have made a decision by now.”

She shrugs. “I was thinking I'd just see what OWLs I do alright in and pick those.”

He props himself up on the edge of his desk, scrubbing at one eye with a finger. “Well, what subjects do you like best?”

“Morning break and lunch,” she says immediately, quick as a whip, and he coughs out a wry laugh.

“Apart from those?”

“I don't really know. I don't really like any lessons.”

“Shoot. I'd never have guessed.”

“ _Sir_ ,” she says, “shocking.”

He laughs again, shaking his head. “There must be some kind of magic you enjoy, though?”

She shrugs again, helpless. “I really don't know. Are you fishing for me to tell you I love Transfiguration?”

“I'm serious. You should be thinking about this sort of thing. What kind of spells do you like best?”

For once, Lily actually thinks about her answer instead of tossing out something glib. She hops onto the desk, swings her legs into the air, and tugs at the sleeves of her robe as she tries to come up with an honest answer. Wainwright stays at the front, sipping his coffee, watching her carefully.

“I guess,” she says at last, slow and uncertain, “I like the pointless magic. That probably sounds stupid. But, like, not the household spells or anything for Defence or even Transfig, no offence. And Potions is boring as shit. Sorry. Takes forever and you can just buy the potions you need anyway. But I like being able to, like, make birds out of paper and conjure up cute clothes and coming up with new ways to make sparkly lights, things like that. Dumb stuff that'll never be useful. Things that don't really matter. Things you'd show little kids to make them go 'aahh'.”

“I don't think that's dumb.”

“You don't?”

“Not at all. That's – I mean, that's magic in its really basic sense. A source of wonder and fun. Have you ever considered experimental Charms?”

She cocks her head. “What's that?”

“It's a little like...” he trails off, frowns, tries to think of a way to explain it to her. “Your cousin Lucy, do you know some of what she does?”

Lily grimaces. “I mean, barely. Stuff about stars and space, right? Muggle stuff.”

“It's actually fascinating, you should talk to her about it.” Wainwright gets up, goes over to a blackboard in the corner and draws it out. He flips it to show a whole side of white chalk, nonsense letters and numbers and shapes to Lily. “They've been using my classroom for their club, her and her friends. I listen sometimes. They're doing some incredibly advanced work.”

“It'll be Minnie,” says Lily knowingly, who pays more attention to her cousins than people think. “Minerva Stuart. She's so smart it's scary. You wouldn't know it with all that bullshit – sorry – she's always spewing about astrology, but I'm pretty sure she's the cleverest person in the world. If they actually get to space one day, it'll be because of her.”

“The others too.” Wainwright taps at a particular line of scribbles. “This is kind of what I mean, though, for you. They're doing a lot of playing around with magic. Testing the boundaries. It's stuff most wizards and witches will never do, because we're so stuffy, we all just do things the way we've always done them. But they're young and they haven't got stuck yet, so they come up with the wildest ideas and it doesn't occur to them why they might not work. They just go out and try them.”

“Right.” Lily's a little lost, she can't lie. “What does this have to do with experien – especial––“

“Experimental Charms. What you said, about liking to come up with new ways to make things sparkle. That's experimental. Thinking about new ways to play with magic, manipulate it. New spells.”

“Oh.” Lily mulls that over for a minute. “That's, like, a thing? Like a thing you can do? Because we do that all the time.”

“You – what?”

“I mean my friends and me. We've made up like a hundred spells to help us do our hair and stuff.”

Wainwright tries and fails not to look pained by that. “Your hair?”

“Sure. There were, like, drying spells, but they made our hair really poofy. And we all need different things, like obviously's Beth's got natural hair so what works for her isn't going to work for the rest of us, and Winnie's hair's always so dry, so we just muck around with what we know and improve it.”

“All of you together?”

“Well, I mean, it's hard to explain. Like, we'll be chatting, and someone will say something about wishing we had a spell for this or that, and it's like – I don't know, like sometimes I can just perfectly imagine how that magic would work? I don't know how. So then I explain it, like how it will feel to do it.”

Wainwright's leaning forward, fascinated, and it encourages Lily to keep going. She pulls her wand out, spreads her hands. “So it's like this. Ophelia's found a picture online of how she wants to do her hair for a party, but we can't figure it out for shit. So, maybe Parks says, it would so much easier if we could just somehow look at that picture in 3D, right, get all up close. And there's probably some super complicated charm buried somewhere in a book somewhere in the library, but who's got time to go look for it? So then I just––“ Lily's wand describes a swirl in the air, curving around the invisible lines of a skull, “––I just see how it would go, that spell. The shape the magic will make. I don't know why I know it, I just sort of feel it. And I'll try it, and it won't work properly because we don't have a word for it. But then––“

“Let me guess,” Wainwright interrupts, and he's smiling, but he still looks like he wants to climb deep inside this conversation and mine it for more information, “Miss Nott with the Latin comes up with the incantation.”

“How did you know?”

“I've never met a sixteen-year-old who could actually _read_ the Latin inscriptions in the textbooks.”

“Purebloods,” Lily explains, mouth twisting, “her dad's mega weird for all that old-fashioned stuff. She can read Ancient Greek, too, the nerd.”

“Fascinating,” Wainwright mutters, “absolutely fascinating. So what are the spells you've come up with?”

“Oh, they're super lame.” Lily lowers her wand, scrunching her nose up. “I mean it. Like, making perfectly tousled beachy waves. That's the level I'm talking about. I feel like you think it's fancier than it is.”

“Lily.” He puts his mug down, looks very steadily at her. “Do you know how advanced it is to make up a spell at all? Very few wizards ever even think to try it.”

“Oh.” That lodges in Lily's chest, small and warm and lovely. “For real?”

He smiles. “Yeah. For real. Look, I don't know if you and your cousin Lucy are close, but you should come along to a couple of their meetings. See what they're doing. They could use that talent of yours.”

“Psh, talent,” she says, but she's thinking about it even so. Lucy wouldn't chuck her out, that she's sure of. Lucy's always liked her more than most of the others like her, if only because she's mostly oblivious to Lily's outrageousness. Maybe she will come and lurk for an evening. What harm can it do?

Wainwright's watching her over his mug, assessing, brows furrowed.

“How do you know all this stuff, anyway?” she wants to know. “Experimental Charms and all. Bit random for a Transfig teacher.”

“I was really interested in it when I was at school.” He drains the last of his coffee and puts his mug down. “I liked all magic, really. I'm Muggleborn, I don't know if you knew. I had no clue about magic until Professor McGonagall arrived on my family's doorstep to tell us about it.”

Lily tries and fails to imagine that. What it must be like, to go from mundane to extraordinary in just a day. The wonder of it all. She wishes that was her, suddenly. New to this world and wide-eyed with it.

Wainwright continues, “So, just, the whole idea of magic was so cool to me. I didn't know what I liked most. I tried everything, I wanted to know how it all worked. And I turned out to be best at Transfiguration, so I stuck with that. I used to wonder about what the rules were for making up spells, you know? How people came up with them in the first place. But I got all that theory sort of shoved into me, and I guess I forgot to wonder in the end. But when the Astrophysics Club came and asked to use my classroom and I started to hear them talking, I remembered. It's made me curious all over again.”

“If it's the theory's fault,” says Lily suspiciously, “why are you so insistent we learn it?”

“I phrased that wrong. I mean, it was more just rules, rote learning. If you want to experiment – I mean, properly, make up brand new spells rather than tweaking ones you've already got – you simply have to have the theoretical understanding or you'll end up killing yourself.”

A half-remembered conversation comes to Lily, then. Her godmother Luna sat with her father a golden summer's afternoon, the pair of them drinking tea in the back garden, Lily aged thirteen sprawled out drowsing on the grass. The way they'd talked about their parents. And Aunt Luna's mother, Pandora, who died experimenting with magic.

“I know someone,” she admits, looking down at her wand, rolling it between her fingers. “My godmother, her mum died from a made-up spell that went wrong. It can be that dangerous?”

“Oh yes. If you don't know the rules.”

“How come we've never hurt ourselves?”

“Small-scale experimentation, small-scale risk. But if you want to go bigger...”

“Bigger risk,” Lily finishes for him. “That makes sense. So I have to do all the theory, even if I'm making up my own spells?”

“I'm afraid so. Speaking of which, have you got that essay you were supposed to hand in last week and promised me you would do over the weekend?”

Lily makes a face. “What do you think?”

“Well, that's another detention, then.”

She shrugs. “That's about right for how my life's going right now.”

Wainwright hesitates, one foot jumping an uncertain tempo against the stone floor. Lily dies a little bit inside when she realises that he's heard the rumour too, that he feels like he needs to ask her about it, but can't figure out a way into it.

It's a relief for them both, then, when overeager Anna Coomb arrives breathless at the doorway and visibly deflates at the sight of Lily there before her and the classroom already set out for the lesson.

“Come in, Anna,” says Wainwright, as Lily slides off her desk and into her seat. “Bang on time, as usual.”

“I'm usually the first,” she says, surly, and gives Lily a very cold look from under her mop of blonde curls. Lily just blinks back, a study in indifference. Lots of the girls fancy Wainwright – and some of the boys too – because he's one of the only male teachers under fifty, and because someone saw him coming out of the Black Lake once after a brave summer swim and discovered he's way more jacked than his dodgy wool cardigans and thick glasses suggest. Lily can see it, if she tilts her head and squints. She's not one for lost causes, though. She's never seen the fun in chasing someone who's never going to slow down to be caught.

“That detention, Lily,” he says as more students begin to arrive, “this Thursday, back here. Straight after dinner please.”

She just nods and slides lower in her chair. Yelena plonks down onto the bench beside her and gives her a bug-eyed look, but Lily just sinks sideways into her with a sigh. As the lesson starts, she picks compulsively at a loose thread on Yell's skirt, her brain going around and around the idea of Experimental Charms, and the small glowing delight of maybe being good at something.

* * *

Detention on Thursday, Lily discovers, is not really detention at all. She starts to get suspicious when she saunters out into the corridor outside Wainwright's classroom and sees a gaggle of Sixth Years scurrying into the room ahead of her. Sure enough, when she stops in the doorway, her cousin Lucy is hunched over a desk covered in formulae and all her barmy friends are swarming around her, each one of them ink-splattered, two of them arguing over a radio and another staring, with disturbing intensity, at a patch of completely blank stone wall.

“Oh.” Lucy's best friend Minnie stops in front of Lily, long brown hair braided with flowers, and knocks her gold-framed spectacles down her nose. “Are you lost?”

“No. I have a detention.”

Minnie hefts her armful of scrolls higher. “Here?”

“Yeah. Wainwright gave it me on Tuesday.”

“He gave you detention here?”

Lily pushes her weight onto her other leg. “Yeah. Like I said.”

“Problem?” Another girl appears as if summoned beside Minnie. She's slight and dark, a livid scar curling over one cheekbone and through an arched eyebrow. Her stance is already belligerent, but Lily doesn't back down the way most people would. People tend to be frightened of Hekate Lestrange. Enough rumours have gone around about what her twin brother did to get expelled and sent abroad to set her firmly in the category of 'to be avoided'. But Lily knows her cousin, and Lucy wouldn't stand anybody for a best friend who didn't have something worth befriending about her.

“Look.” Lily frowns at the pair of them, Minnie languid and tanned, her pink floral dungarees a vivid contrast to Hekate's black gym leggings and hoodie; Hekate glowering, just waiting for Lily to make a bad move. “I'm not here to make trouble. Wainwright was telling me about your club, okay? He thought I'd like it. I think that's why he set me up with this whole detention thing. I do some, like, expar – um, experimental charms? Which he said you guys do. So.”

Minnie softens immediately. “Shit, you should have said! Come on, come over. Lucy! Your cousin's here.” She reaches out, takes a fistful of Lily's sweater, and drags her over to Lucy's desk. Lily doesn't even have time to be offended before Minnie has let her go and physically taken Lucy's head in both hands, turning it forcefully away from her equations and towards Lily.

“Oh!” Lucy bounds up, wide-eyed. “You're joining our club?”

“Just observing,” says Lily quickly, conscious suddenly of lots of eyes on her. They're mostly Ravenclaws in Lucy's year, but she can see the odd other face – even a Slytherin boy she recognises, and, to her surprise, Morgana Malfoy, Orion's cousin. She feels exposed, there in the centre of them without any of her friends. She clocks that that's why Wainwright's conned her two seconds later – he must have known she'd have dragged minimum three friends with her if she'd come of her own volition.

“Alright, then.” Lily sighs, surrenders to the inevitable. “Show me all this space stuff then.”

And they do, so generous with their knowledge, dragging her from wall to wall and blackboard to blackboard, Lucy so terrible at explaining anything that she'll get halfway through a sentence and then start talking about something new, Minnie little better. Hekate shadows them, quiet but for when they jump too far too fast, easing the conversation back in a direction even Lily can understand.

It's the first time Lily's seen a friendship that reminds her of her own. A group who are more a single unit that separate people, each filling a specific role, their dynamic as set in stone as the interplay between airway and lungs, between blood and veins.

Nobody stops talking long enough to ask Lily what she's interested in, which is just as well. She has no idea. She can't see a thing she can contribute to this group, whose intellects to a man outshine her own by miles. They talk with deadly seriousness about sending a witch or wizard into space, about the relative merits of Muggle tech versus spells, about whether a momentum charm could give them enough oomph to get a rocket off the ground.

“Did you know,” Minnie says to her later, paused in front of a sprawling satellite photo of South America, “we could do any of this so easily? Magic makes it all so much simpler. It took the Muggles decades but it'll take us years at most, once we get out of Hogwarts and start for real. But I don't want to do it just for us. I want to figure out a way we can give it to the Muggles too.”

She draws a finger over the great green expanse of the Amazon, taps it against a strip of blackened land. “They're burning this forest so fast there's no way to stop it. Like cancer, spreading into the planet's lungs. Because they don't have any other way. That's all they've got, the burning. But if we can figure out how to give them clean energy, green transportation, jobs that don't drive them into the trees looking for illegal gold... they wouldn't need to do any of it.”

“It's not just there.” Hekate has appeared on Minnie's other side, so silently she startles Lily. “It's the whole world. Everywhere you look, Muggles are killing the Earth. And we're part of that, because we're letting them. We can stop it. So it's on us if we don't.”

“I thought you guys just wanted to go to space?” Lily turns to them both, half-joking, but half-deadly serious. “What's with all the environmentalism?”

“No point going to space if there's no planet to come back to.” Minnie smiles, wide but sad, and in that moment she looks so much like the great-aunt she's named for that Lily has to blink. Professor McGonagall had retired by the time Lily got to Hogwarts, but she visited her parents regularly when Lily was young, and she knows her face well. She's never been able to see the resemblance before, but now it's there, there's no way to miss it.

All the way back to the Slytherin dungeons that night, Lily's head goes around and around it. All that forest, burning. Species going up in flames before they've even been discovered and named. By the time she's tucked up in bed, arms curled around her legs, she feels like she can smell the soot on the air. It'll be a long time before she can shake the dread she feels.

In the face of that, her problems seem trivial indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Easter holidays roll around, and bring an entirely unexpected family member with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so the wait for the last chapter was not, as it turns out, an anomaly. The good news is I have the next two chapters all written out, so there will not be such a wait again!

Easter holidays roll around quicker than expected. Lily goes home pointedly wearing a short skirt and a crop top, and in the brief second between her parents spotting her and making identical faces at the amount of skin she's got on show, she sees them exchange a look of sheer relief at the sight of her stomach flat and flawless.

As usual, it takes twenty minutes to say goodbye to her friends, even though they'll be seeing each other in less than a week when they convene at Parks' house and take another trip to Hoarwood. Albus slopes up out of the crowd even later, shifty. Lily takes one look at him and launches immediately and loudly into an outrageous story about Beth and Hagrid's salamanders, gesticulating madly to keep their mum and dad's eyes on her and not on the size of Albus' pupils, the lopsided way he's standing and the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.

She keeps talking all the way to their car, bounding around, fizzing with energy. It's an old tactic, and one she would have thought her parents had learned to see through by now. But they're too relieved, she thinks, to see there's no truth to their fears about her. So they let her distract them, her hair pooling on the console as she leans forwards between their seats, blocking Albus from their view. Their mum presses the Portkey button – an invention that surfaced five years ago and took the wizarding world by storm – and launches them into that strange spinning nothing between here and home as Lily finishes a tall tale about Astrophysics Club and Lucy's odd friend Carnaby.

She's still talking as they arrive in the car-Portkey park tucked into the hills outside her hometown, twittering away about all the revision she's going to have to do as her dad drives them home.

She continues chattering at them all the way up the garden path and into the house, breathless and worn out by the time she gets through the front door, and then asks loudly and insistently for a cup of tea and cakes as she winds her arm tight around Albus' neck and starts to drag him up to his bedroom.

James shuffles out of his old room when she's halfway up the stairs, furiously attempting to pummel Albus higher.

“No, no,” she puffs as she shoves Albus up onto the landing, “you just stand there and watch. It's _so_ helpful of you.”

“What a lovely way to greet your favourite brother.” James follows her into Al's room and props himself on the doorjamb as she gingerly unloops Al's arm from around her shoulders and pushes him bodily onto his bed.

“You know full-well you're only my favourite when Al's this out of it.” Grumpily, she sits down on the end of the bed and starts to untie Al's ratty shoelaces. “Go on, then, how's the other half?”

“Jesus.” James slips quickly into the room and shuts the door. “Just tell the whole street.”

Lily pulls Al's shoe off and lets it plop onto the floor. He doesn't even twitch.

“Right, because Al's _definitely_ retaining information right now.”

“Mum and Dad might hear.”

“Kettle's on. I asked for tea.”

“Still—"

“Brother mine, if you didn't want searching questions, you shouldn't have turned up for dinner with a hickey that big on your neck.”

“I – what?” James eels over to the mirror and yanks at the collar of his sweater. As Lily throws herself backwards, cackling, he turns around with menacing resolve. “I'll get you for that.”

She launches herself for the door, squealing, and James chases her all the way down the stairs and into the sitting room. She clambers over their dad, ignoring his protests, and tucks herself down behind him like she's three again.

“Dad, Dad, help,” she chokes out, laughing too hard to talk properly, “James is trying to kill me.”

“Alright, alright.” Her dad's laughing now too, arms out between them. “Glad you're pleased to see each other at least. Where's Al?”

“Napping,” Lily lies easily, tilting her head meaningfully at James. “Think they were up a bit late last night.”

“Kids these days,” says James, shaking his head as he drops into an armchair. “Dreadful. Is Teddy still coming for dinner?”

“Yep. He's bringing dessert.”

“Oh god.” Lily grimaces. “I'm not sure my guts have recovered from his last cake.”

“Hey, now. At least he contributed something. Not like you two parasites.”

“I'm still a minor.” Lily smiles at her dad angelically. “You're legally obligated to provide for me. James, on the other hand—"

“Yeah, yeah,” says James, and that sets them all off again, laughing so hard their mum comes through from the kitchen to see what's happening.

  
  


* * *

These holidays are easily the least fun Lily has ever experienced, which is saying something considering she spent the previous holiday pregnant and freaking out about it. Her parents unveil a revision timetable her second morning back, and Lily immediately retaliates by inviting Euan round for the day. To both of their despairs, his dad insists on accompanying him. Lily opens the front door to find Euan holding a large stack of textbooks and wearing a thunderous expression, his father standing behind him looking more smug than she thought possible.

“Hello, Lily,” Neville says, and nudges Euan forward.

“Hi, Uncle Neville,” says Lily sourly, and Euan just shakes his head at her in silence as he traipses over the threshold. Lily's dad comes cheerfully out of the kitchen to announce he's set up the dining room for them to revise in together, and Lily finds all her books already laid out, stacks of index cards and piles of highlighters scattered invitingly around. Her dad's left a plate of brownies in the middle of it all, which does go a short way towards softening the blow.

Lily sighs and surrenders. “Fine. I'm going to get something more comfortable on. I'll be down in five.”

“You better be,” warns Euan darkly, “I'm not doing any revision without you. If I suffer, you suffer.”

“That's true friendship,” says Lily's mum brightly, “now give me your phones.”

Two hours later, Lily's head is swimming. Her Charms revision has refused wholesale to go into her brain. She's spent a solid eight minutes picking obsessively at a loose thread in the cuff of her dragon onesie, trying to unloop it millimetre by millimetre from the hem.

“I hate OWLs already,” Euan whispers to her from his side of the table. His brown eyes are bloodshot. “We haven't even started them and I hate them.”

“Let's move to South America and never come back.” Lily leans back in her chair. “Stuff this exam nonsense. Where's the exam for _life_.”

“You can revise for the life exam when you've learned your Charms theory,” says Euan's dad, sticking his head into the room, “and not a moment sooner. More tea?”

“Cyanide tea, if you have it.” Lily mimes taking a sip and collapsing, hands at her throat.

“Tell me the charm you'd use to check if a drink has been poisoned, and you can have your phones for fifteen minutes.”

Euan sits bolt upright and barks it out. Lily, a second behind him, repeats the syllables with no knowledge of whether he's correct or not. He is, fortunately, and Neville laughs as they scramble for their phones like drowning sailors glimpsing land.

“You're addicts,” he tells them, and claps Euan on the shoulder before he goes back to the sitting room. Lily locks and unlocks her phone a few times mindlessly, then sighs.

“Want some fresh air?”

Euan shrugs. “I could.”

In the kitchen, Lily sticks her feet into her mum's battered old Ugg boots and gives the stiff door a shove to let them out. The air is damp and cold, that March chill lingering. Lily's so over the dark mornings and dark evenings and constant wet greyness.

“So.” Euan pushes his hands into his armpits and settles down onto the old swing seat under the big tree. “You heard from our quidditch man, then?”

Lily sits down next to him and tucks her knees up. Leaning into him is easy, familiar. Something she's been doing all her life.

“Can we talk about something else, please?”

“If you like.” His fingers go to his pockets and then stop, stymied. He's so used to pulling out a cigarette when he talks to her like this, the pair of them alone outside in the cold air. But parents are just indoors, visible through the big windows in the sitting room, laughing at something in the comfortable way of very old friends.

So Lily pulls the cuffs of her onesie down and wraps her hands around his to keep them from roving. He sighs, long and drawn out, and leans his head against hers. She knows what it must look like to their parents – what she and Euan have always looked like, to them – but she can't bring herself to care. Let them think what they want. They'll never know they're more like to end up with joint grandkids via Al and Daisy – even James and Poppy – than her and Euan.

“Is it weird that I've been thinking about it?” he asks her quietly, his thumb smoothing over the green fleece of her cuff. “The baby, I mean. Like, what it would have been like to be a dad. A fake dad, obviously. But still, you know? I can't get it out of my head.”

“Go knock someone up then.” Lily shoves her knees into him. “It's actually not that hard.”

“Yeah, great idea. Go on, then, who should I knock up? Give me a good challenge.”

Lily laughs, viciously, and says, “Ophelia.”

“Ugh, gross, no. It would be way too easy, anyway, bless her. Go on, a real challenge.”

Lily's still laughing, but she does think about it. Her feet tap idly against the bench as she circles around the problem.

And then inspiration strikes.

“I've got it. My cousin Rose.”

Euan's face cycles through the five stages of grief more quickly than she can compute. “Rose,” he repeats, disbelieving.

“Sure. You wanted a challenge, right? Pretty sure she's never looked twice at a dude.”

“Exactly. I mean – you've never thought she might be gay?”

Lily purses her lips, thoughtful. “I mean, I've never seen her look twice at a girl, either. I think she maybe just isn't interested in anybody.”

“Well, I'm not knocking someone up unless there's at least a small chance they'd enjoy the conception stage of the process. Pick someone else, go on.”

“Fine. Different cousin. Lucy.”

“Are you kidding me? The girl who's sexually attracted to computers and astronomy charts?”

“She's not – for fuck's sake. Fine.” Lily wracks her brain, picks the first name that pops in. “Amira Baqri. The headmaster's daughter.”

“She's... hmm.” Euan leans his head back against the bench. “I could go for that.”

“I mean, she's stunning. She'll never go for you.”

“Excuse me. _I'm_ stunning.”

“Alright, Longbottom, whatever you say. Suppose you've got the advantage of being a cool fifth year when she's only fourth year. Older man and all that.”

“Yeah, ancient, that's me. Come on, I can see my dad waving through the window. Back to the gulag.”

“I hate exams.” Lily lets herself be pulled to her feet, shuffles dolefully behind Euan towards the house. “Let's just pack them in and run away. I can get a job as a circus act and you can just talk people into giving us money.”

“Yeah, yeah. You'd fit right in at the circus.”

“Oh, fuck off,” says Lily, right as her dad opens the door to let them back in. Wordlessly, he points to the corner of the kitchen. With an eye roll, Lily stumps over and puts a sickle in the swear jar.

  
  


* * *

  
  


They have Easter with Rose and Hugo. Rose spends the entire day looking sick, and Lily would be more interested in getting to the bottom of why if she could just resist teasing Hugo about Winnie for more than two minutes at a time. But by the end of the day, she still hasn't managed to ask Rose about it.

There's something worse coming, she'd said, back before Louis left school. The way she's looking, the terror on her, it has to be coming soon.

Four days later, a week before Lily and Al are due to go back to Hogwarts, the front doorbell rings. It's a filthy day, so wet stepping outside feels like drowning. Lily's been in the front room playing a new game, abandoned by Al – who's gone off to meet either a friend or a hook-up, she didn't care enough to ask which – so she slopes up to the door to find out who's braved the deluge.

“Oh,” she says, rocking back. “Hi Uncle Ron. And – um?”

Her uncle just stares back at her. He's white as a sheet, eyes like tunnels. He looks like he's been told he's got days left to live.

Lily takes one look at him and yells, “Mum! Dad!”

The panic in her voice brings them tumbling, pell-mell, from their study.

“Oh, god, Ron. What's...” Her mum reaches out, pulls him in from the rain. “And – who's this?”

Lily is hovering in the hallway, pressed against the coats. “That's Leonora Greengrass. She's in Slytherin with me.”

“That's me.” Leonora draws forward into the porch to get out of the rain. But she comes no further. She's about Lily's height, her red hair cut short and stylish into a bob. Her eyes are wide-set and very dark, her mouth thin and unsmiling, her skin the same milky white as Rose's but without the freckles. When she blinks, mascara smears under her eyes, and Lily watches, slightly mesmerised, as she lifts an elegant thumb and wipes it away.

Lily knows Leonora. Lo, they all her call her. First cousin to Scorpius Malfoy and friends with _his_ cousin, Morgana. Got teased with the same ginger jokes Lily did when they were younger, and actually showed her a good hex one time to turn other people's hair the same red shade as theirs, only singed at the ends. Lily will never admit this, but Leonora Greengrass is one of the only girls who scares her. There's something about the way she is, something so carelessly destructive. Like a wildfire.

Scorpius told Lily once, in the brief window between them actually getting to know each other and getting caught in that Charms classroom, that his aunt – Lo's mother – hates her daughter. He'd produced the fact the way one might produce a small dead animal, sickly fascinated, eager to share in the morbidity.

So Lily knows Leonora. What Lily doesn't know is why she's stood on this doorstep with her shellshocked uncle.

“She's, um,” says Ron, not quite meeting anyone's eyes, “she's my daughter. As it turns out.”

The silence that greets this is absolute. Lily turns to meet her parents' astonished eyes, the three of them briefly united on a totally equal playing field by the sheer insanity of this declaration.

“But...” Lily's mum is the first to rally. “Um, Ron? She's – how old are you, dear?”

“Seventeen.” Lo twists a red curl around one finger with studious disinterest. “One year younger than Rose. One year older than Hugo.”

“She's,” tries Ron, and then makes a very strange noise. Lily's dad has been standing with his mouth hanging open, but this seems to bring him back down to Earth.

“Right. Okay, right. You'd – Lily, why don't you take, um, Leonora upstairs? Lend her some dry clothes, won't you. We'll, um...”

For once, Lily does as she's told. She tilts her head wordlessly at Lo and the other girl, to her credit, follows. They get to the landing and Lily stops there. Lo halts behind her, one eyebrow raised.

Lily leans in and whispers, “Look, if you don't want to that's fine, but if we sit here we can hear everything they say in the kitchen and sitting room, so—”

“Oh, great.” Lo sits down as easy as that, tucking her short hair behind her ears. Lily has to blink. The way she does it makes her look so much like Rose. Knowing the truth now, it seems impossible to miss. How did no-one ever realise?

In the hallway, Lily's parents are having a very hasty conference, voices low and urgent.

“He's my brother,” Ginny hisses, “this should definitely be a conversation I have with him—"

“No way. You know I'm useless when Hermione's really upset. That's a female conversation, you should go.”

“Ugh.” There's the sound of a fist smacking into a palm. “Look, rock paper scissors you for it.”

Her dad's voice, quietly indignant, “I'm not going to—"

“Rock, paper, scissors, go. Shit. How do you always win? Okay. I'm going.”

A brief rustle, the sound of a kiss being planted on a forehead or a cheek, and then the front door opens and closes. Through the windows, Lily can see her mother rushing down the garden path and pulling her wand out, then disappearing from sight with a crack.

“Alright, Ron.” Lily and Lo shift sideways instinctively as her dad's voice floats down the hall and into the sitting room. “I'm going to get you a cup of tea, and then you're going to tell me what the hell is going on.”

“My brothers are going to be so mad they missed this,” Lily informs Lo as the kettle starts to boil. She gets no response. She makes a face where Lo can't see it, and subsides into silence.

The wait is agonising. But finally her dad's footsteps pace back into the sitting room, and the sofa sighs as he settles onto it.

“I have two questions,” he announces. “Number one: how long have you known? Number two: how did this happen?”

“I, uh...” Ron sounds terrible. Lily's never heard him this way. All the times she's heard her aunt and uncle fight, he's always had that Uncle-Ron-glint in his eye. His good humour has been a constant in her life, with his steady bravery and willingness to laugh at himself. She can't lie, she's starting to feel a bit shellshocked herself.

“I had no idea,” he manages at last, his voice shaking. “I swear to you, Harry, no bloody clue until she turned up on our doorstep this afternoon. I mean, how could I – how could _she_ , I...”

“How did it happen? Who's her mother?”

“I... oh, god. It was back after Rose was born, you remember? Hermione just didn't click with her. I talked to the Healers and they went on about post-partum depression and I could see, I could just see how miserable she was. But she wouldn't let me near the baby, you know? You must remember. I just wanted to help, and... that time I came to you. You and Ginny.”

“I remember.” Her dad's voice is low, soothing. The voice he used to use when Lily was a child, screaming herself raw over nothing.

“Hermione kicked me out the day before. She said we were finished, over. And she really... I mean, I know we've had that fight a lot. But I've never heard her mean it like she meant it that day. Until this afternoon, I suppose. God.”

There's a loud slurp as he takes a sip of tea, and then he hisses out a breath.

“I didn't know what to do. I should have come here but it just felt like such a failure, you know? You and Ginny with James, and Al on his way, and you were so happy, so good at everything, like it was the easiest and most obvious thing. I felt like such a failure.”

“We weren't—"

“I know. I know that now. But... I was still a kid, I guess. I'm not trying to make excuses. But I just felt so completely wrecked. So I stumbled into the first bar I could find and got really drunk. I remember seeing her – Daphne Greengrass. She was in our year, you remember? That's all I really have from that night. All that dark hair of hers, and the dress she was wearing. So red. Then I woke up next to her the next morning feeling like shit and she just laughed and said it was alright, she didn't want anybody knowing either. And she asked me to go before her housemate got home. So I did. I just crept off like a coward. And then I came here, and I was still trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do – and then Hermione came and said sorry. And I couldn't, Harry, I couldn't jeopardise that. I love her so much. And I knew, if she knew, she'd make sure I never saw Rose. I couldn't... I couldn't let that happen.”

“Jesus.” The sofa groans, Lily's dad probably leaning back to digest this.

“I know. Trust me, I know. But Daphne never said anything. Not a word. I didn't see her again after that night, not once. If I'd had any idea, I would have done the right thing. I'd have come clean, you know I would. I mean, for god's sake, that's my daughter up there. And she's – she's so clever. So self-possessed. I should have been there for her, been her dad like she deserves. And instead she's grown up thinking her dad was some arsehole who just ditched her. How am I ever going to make that up to her?”

“Sounds like that's on her mother,” says Lily's dad, his voice firm. “Come on, Ron, it's you. We all know you'd have done the right thing if you'd known.”

“She doesn't. I'm a total stranger to her. Merlin.” There's a pause. And then, his voice as choked as Lily's ever heard it, he says, “Doesn't she look so like Rose?”

When he starts to cry, Lily stands up. Lo looks up at her, one perfectly-shaped eyebrow raised, and Lily beckons her backwards.

“We don't need to hear this.” She goes into her room, not waiting to see if Lo will follow. But she does. She sits on Lily's bed, those huge eyes taking in everything. Lily's abruptly conscious of the little-girl wallpaper, the knick-knacks bursting from every surface, the clothes strewn all over the floor.

“We look about the same size,” she announces to draw Lo's eyes away, “you can wear these jeans, here.”

She tosses them over, adds a sweater, and slides out onto the landing to give her privacy to change. Their dads are still speaking downstairs, their voices hoarse and nervy. Lily tunes them out. She fixes her gaze on the family photo opposite instead, all of the cousins waving, her grandparents in the middle of them all smiling fit to burst.

Lily can't imagine what this is going to do the family in that photograph. Maybe they've not been individually happy, not always. But as a unit, on the whole, they do great.

Now this bombshell has been dropped in the middle of them. This photo, which until today was a picture of the collective, is now a reminder that somebody has been missing all this time. A reminder that one of those marriages has been hurtling unknowingly for a precipice all along.

Lily takes a deep breath. Rose was right. They need to be together for this. All of them.

With shaking hands, she pulls her phone out of her pocket. Her thumb hesitates over Louis' name, and then she lifts the phone to her ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the revelations, Lily and her dad do a little bit of talking.

Lily isn't sure what she was expecting, but Louis picking up on the third ring wasn't it. Expecting voicemail – or to have been blocked – she flounders.

“Lily?”

God, her name is like a wound. There ought to be blood running from her ear to her chin.

She reaches for steady footing and finds it, just about. “Yeah. It's me. How... um, how are you?”

“Fine. What's the matter, why are you ringing?”

“I just – I need to tell you something. Why did you pick up?”

Wherever he is, there's wind howling, the line blustery and full of crackle.

“You never rang me before. Even when... before, you always just texted. You said you only ever ring people when you had to.”

“You remembered that?” Lily opens the door to James' old bedroom and slides inside, closing it carefully behind her.

“For fuck's sake, Lily, come on. What's the matter?”

“It's nothing to do with you or me,” she says, and the way he sighs when he hears that, the relief in it, puts another crack in her heart. “It's about Uncle Ron. He just showed up here. He's – well, he's got a daughter. I mean, another one. Not Rose.”

“I... what?”

“Yeah. I know, right? She's in Slytherin, the year above me. Leonora Greengrass.”

There's an astonished silence on the other end of the phone. And then Louis says, all animosity towards her blown away by this revelation, “Sorry, Leonora Greengrass is Uncle Ron's daughter?”

“I know.” Lily sinks back against the door, into the comforting smell of James' ragged old dressing gown. “Nuts. Her mum never told him anything. It was some stupid one night stand forever ago, when he thought Aunt Hermione wanted to divorce him. And she just turned up on their doorstep this afternoon.”

“Jesus Christ. What's he going to do?”

“I don't think he knows. He's, you know, a good person, though. He'll be a dad to her.”

“I'm sure he will.” Quiet falls as Louis thinks about that. Lily allows herself to picture him, maybe walking in the Brecon Beacons, the wind catching at his curls. There'll be colour on his cheeks and he'll be wearing those jeans she likes, the ones that cling in all the right places, that make his legs look even longer. God. Four months on and the longing for him still feels like an illness sat inside of her.

And then he says, “Why did you call me, Lily? I could have heard about this from anyone.”

It takes her ten seconds to decide whether to lie or not.

In the end, truth wins out. The way it always has for her, when it comes to him.

“Partly because we need to make peace, at least for the moment. We all need to be together for this, and if we're weird, people will notice.”

“Fine.” It comes out cold, dismissive. It doesn't sound like Louis at all. “Whatever. What's the other reason?”

Lily grips her phone tight and says, “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Silence. And then, “No, Lily. You don't get to do that.”

“I know I don't. But it's the truth. It's mostly why I rang.”

“Lily, you can't—“

“I'm not trying to do anything. I'm not worming my way back in. But I promised myself I would tell you the truth from now on, or at least try to. So that's the truth. Please don't let it keep you away. I know you're so angry with me, and mad at your parents, but please come back. For this. You're just – you're the steadiest person in this family, alright? Even Fred can't be a rock like you can. We need you.”

“We?”

She grits her teeth. “Yes. The honest-to-god truth. We need you.”

He says nothing. His silence is a challenge. A battle cry.

Lily takes a breath. It echoes around James' empty room. Glances off the mattress and over the empty bedside table and comes back to her. She lines up what she wants to say on her tongue, makes the shape of the words. _I'm so sorry for what I did. Come back and let's start again. Let's do it over now we know how much it can hurt. Let's do it better and gentler this time._

Instead she swallows and says, “Call Vic. She'd better get over to Grandma and Grandpa's before the news does.”

Louis says nothing for a moment, and Lily knows she has failed whatever test he laid down. She's alright with that. Failing Louis is a guarantee, these days.

“I'll go get her,” he says finally, and the wind on his line stops abruptly, like he's wedged himself some place sheltered. “We'll go over there together. That should distract Grandma long enough for Uncle Ron to figure out how to tell everyone.”

“Great, thanks. And, look, don't tell them, will you? I'll text if he wants us to leak the news. But otherwise let's let him tell.”

“Yeah.” Louis blows out a breath. And another. And then he says, all in a rush, his voice tight, “But don't call again, Lily, alright? Speaking to you, it's – just don't. Text me if you have to. But don't call.”

Lily is nothing. She's a dandelion seed, blowing away on the wind. “Sure. Whatever.”

“I have to go.”

“Yeah. It was...” she doesn't finish that thought. Doesn't think she can quite bear to find out what his reaction would be. But she's thinking about his hands again, his mouth. The way he'd looked at her that afternoon on the beach, something inside him burning. Her courage sputters and flares to life, so fast she can't get ahold of it, and she says defiantly, “I love you.” Then she hangs up the call.

The courage flees as quickly as it came and she has to hold her phone against her forehead until her hands stop shaking. Jesus. Who is she? What's she doing?

When she opens the door, Lo is standing on the other side of it in a way that tells Lily that only seconds before she'd been standing against it, ear pressed close, listening in.

“Nosey bitch,” Lily tells her, without any real rancour. “No point trying, anyway, my brothers put so many muffling charms on their rooms they're fully sound-proofed now.”

Lo sniffs and says nothing. Lily's still fizzing with the strangeness of it all, with the way Louis sounded in her ear. She feels huge and terrible, too big for her skin.

“Come on,” she says, before she does something she'll regret. “Let's go down.”

She doesn't wait to see if her new cousin is following before she takes to the stairs, thumping her way down them to give her dad ample warning they're coming. She slides into the sitting room nervously, anticipating a wreck. But her dad is lounging there with surprising calm, eyes bright and determined behind his glasses. He stares up at her, steady as a rock, and Lily remembers all in a rush that he's had even more reason than she has to learn to hide the storms crashing around inside him.

Nervously, Lily circles the sofa and darts a glance over her uncle. He's in the middle of pulling himself together, his mouth pinched tight. Lily has never been one for physical affection with anybody outside of her immediate circle, but her uncle looks so badly like he needs a hug that she's folded down to give him one before she can think about it.

“Oh,” he says, his voice muffled by her hair. He hesitates, and then one hand comes up to pat uncertainly at her ribcage. There's a bit of a tremor in his voice. “Nice to see you too, Lily.”

“Yeah.” She gives him one quick squeeze, arms tight around his shoulders, and then withdraws. She meets her dad's eyes again and his crinkle, just a little. Finally, Lily's done something good today. For whatever reason, her hug has galvanised Uncle Ron. He pushes himself to his feet and turns, ponderously, to look at his newly found daughter.

“So,” he says at last. Lo tips her chin up and holds his gaze. She's a tower against which the tsunami breaks and the tsunami breaking against it at the same time. Lily wants to be her and wants her gone with equal intensity.

“I think you and I had better talk.” Ron sets his mug down carefully on a table. “There's a cafe – it's out of the way. I can apparate us.”

Lily and her dad watch them go from the porch, their shoulders hunched against the rain. Lily keeps blinking and expecting the scene to dissolve in front of her eyes. Her uncle, solid steady unshakeable Ron, with his hand on some strange girl's shoulder, his eyes weary and shocked but ready to love even now. He turns her towards him gently and she reaches up, silent, to wrap her hand around his wrist. He sighs, shoots just one glance back at Lily and her dad, and then apparates them both away.

“Rose knew,” Lily says, because she feels like it needs to be said. “She told me earlier this year. Not this, specifically. But that something bad was coming.”

Lily's dad sighs very long and very deep. He reaches out and pulls her into him the way he hasn't since she hit her teens and started telling him not to embarrass her, her shoulderblades against the familiar expanse of his chest. His arm wraps over her collarbone, holding her tight against him, just a little bit afraid. She can feel his heart beating through her spine. Despite everything, it still comforts her immensely.

Suspiciously, Lily asks, “This isn't the bit where you tell me you or Mum has a secret child somewhere, is it? Because let me tell you, I'm full up on brothers.”

There's a beat, and then he laughs. It's so loud and sudden it's bordering on hysteria, all the afternoon's tension loosed in a single helpless sound.

“Oh my god.” He lets her go, passes a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ. I thought fighting Voldemort was the hardest thing I'd ever have to do.”

“Could be worse,” Lily remarks, and pushes past him back into the house.

“Oh yes?” He follows her in and shuts the door on the rain. “How's that?”

“You could have lost to Mum and pulled the Aunt Hermione straw.”

“God.” He sits down heavily on the stairs. There's grey shot through his black hair now, salt and pepper stubble on his chin. He looks older for the first time Lily can remember. “Poor Hermione. Poor Ron. If every stupid decision came back like this—“

“You haven't gone and shagged someone after you married Mum, have you?” Lily demands, eyebrows flying high.

Her dad looks horrified at the idea. “God, no.”

“Well then. You probably won't have any secret children turning up on your doorstep.”

He leans forwards and props his elbows on his knees, then steeples his fingers together. Suddenly, there's a very solemn note in the air.

Lily just has time to think, Oh _shit_ , and then he's saying in a deceptively mild tone, “I was a bit worried I was going to have a secret grandchild. For a while back there.”

Her face catches in a rictus grin. She turns sideways so he can see, pulls her top tight against her stomach. “Don't worry. You're off the hook. Bloody hell, do Hogwarts rumours get back even to you these days?”

“It was Neville, actually. He was terrified. He doesn't want to be a grandfather via you and Euan any more than I do.”

“For God's sake.” Lily lets her top go and does an eye roll so big it hurts. “I'm going to tell you this once and not again, alright? Everyone keeps saying it, but me and Euan aren't like that. Never have been and probably never will be.”

Her dad's eyebrows quirk. “Probably?”

“Well, I never say never.” Lily folds her arms and glares down at him. “I'd like it if you said you believed me.”

“I'd like it too. But you have to admit – the two of you... it's not like you can't understand why people think that, is it?”

Lily sighs and unfolds her arms. “I do get it. And I do love him, obviously. Don't tell him I said that. It's just, I don't love him like that. I don't think I ever could, it'd be too weird. I mean, it's Euan. It's like – you've never thought about Aunt Hermione that way, have you?”

Her dad frowns and then his eyes go shifty, like he's thinking something he shouldn't be, and Lily hops backwards with a shriek of outrage. Her dad lifts both hands, laughing so hard he can barely breathe.

“No, no,” he manages to choke out, “not like that. I meant when I was, like, fourteen or fifteen. I just had _one_ dream. She was the only girl I knew, so...”

“You're _so_ gross.” Lily sticks her nose in the air, but she's swallowing down a laugh too. “Does she know?”

“Are you kidding? I had to scrub my own brain with soap to get the images out afterwards. No way was I ever going to tell her or Ron.”

“Dad,” Lily tells him, with deep feeling, “let's never have this conversation again.”

“Yes, you might be right. Come on. I think I need a cup of tea.”

He pushes himself to his feet and tousles Lily's hair like she's nine again. Lily ducks away and pretends to bite him, then follows him into the kitchen. She's wondering, absently, what her life might have been like if her dad and aunt and uncle and mother had meshed together differently. Maybe she'd be more like Rose, serious and a little uncanny. Or more like Hugo, earnest and cheerful by default. It's a funny thing, to think she might never have been a Weasley at all. Maybe she'd have met Louis some other time, some other place, and could have dug beneath his surface in a way she was allowed to do. It would have been permissible, to let her eyes linger on the way his clothes cling to him. To put her hands low, and then lower still. To long for his hands on her in return. It feels more unfair than ever, that it worked out the way it did.

She pauses on the threshold to the kitchen and eyes her dad as he bumbles around putting the kettle on and fishing mismatched mugs out of the dishwasher. What would he have been, if he and Aunt Hermione had turned out the way he and her mother did? Colder, she thinks. More driven. She's glad he found his way back to her mum instead.

He catches her looking and flashes a confused grin, absent and fond. Lily smiles back, and then hops up onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar. When he passes her tea, too weak and milky, she curls her fingers around it.

“What would you have done,” she has to know, “if I had been pregnant?”

He's lowering himself onto a stool opposite but he pauses mid-action, brows knitting together.

“This had better be a hypothetical question.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die. I'm just curious. Like, did Leonora's mum tell her parents, do you think? Or did she keep her a secret from everyone?”

“Well, I can't speak for her. I didn't know her at school. But for me and your mum, well.” He stops to think about that, pressing his fingers to his temples. “We'd have supported you, obviously. Talked about your options with you. But, Lily – we'd have been so disappointed. That would be your whole future decided for you in a second.”

“Hm.” Lily takes a sip. God, he makes disgusting tea. “I mean, it wouldn't have to. That's a pretty backwards way to look at it.”

“I'm not saying your life would be over or anything. I'm just saying, having a child, that's a momentous upheaval. That's huge. It's not something you ever move past. Whatever you decide to do, you're going to be amazing. I don't want you to have your possibilities limited, not by anything.”

“What if,” Lily starts, and then casts her gaze down at her own hands. They're freckled, pale, her knuckles white beneath her skin. “What if I never want kids?”

Her dad reaches out and wraps his hands around hers. “If you'd be happy that way, then I want it for you.”

She sucks in a breath. It's a little shaky. Until she said it, she didn't realise it was something she might want. “You wouldn't be mad?”

“It's not anything to do with me at all.” He gives her hands a squeeze and then pulls away, picking his own mug back up.

When Lily darts her gaze up, he's looking down at her. How hard he's thinking is written right across him, the cogs whirring. He's trying to figure this out. Trying to unpick the layers from his prickly daughter and work out what's really going on. Just for a second, Lily thinks about confessing to him.

But then she catches herself and almost laughs. Jesus. What a day it's been to make her even think about that.

Instead she grins and says, “Bet you a galleon Mum's missing a limb when she gets back.”

Her dad's expression clears and he laughs. “No way. She's too quick for that.”

“Aunt Hermione's quicker.”

“Fine. You're on. You want to just give me my galleon now, or?”

Lily sticks her tongue out at him. Despite everything, she feels bright. They'll sort this out, her mum and dad. This abrupt new cousin, this shell crater in the hull of the ship that is the Weasleys. If Lily's parents are involved, everything will turn out okay. How can it not, the pair of them?

She remembers to ask, “Does Uncle Ron want us to tell people? Or is he going to say?”

“I think he'd like to introduce everybody to Leonora. I don't know when he'll be ready, though. We'll have to distract your grandparents.”

“Oh, I sent Louis.” Lily taps her knuckles on the countertop, says it like it's nothing at all. “He's getting Vic over there, they'll be so distracted over her baby bump it'll buy Uncle Ron a day or so. And they won't tell.”

“You're talking to Louis? How is he? I've been trying to get news off Al, but––“

“Psh, Al doesn't know anything to do with Louis.” Lily takes her hurt and shame and squishes it up into a little ball and shoves it way down deep inside her so she can talk about this idly, like Louis is nothing to her at all. “It's the first I've spoken to him since he left. I thought he was the right person to tell, you know. This quidditch thing proved he's good at keeping secrets.”

“Not as good as you,” says her dad, half teasing and half probing. Lily just smiles back at him, blank and glassy as a mirror. Best liar in town, that's Lily Potter. Secret-keeper. A labyrinth with a hundred minotaurs roaming.

“This is going to be a bloody mess.” Her dad lifts his mug to his lips and drains the whole thing in one go. “I'd better go make the spare room up for Ron.”

He leaves, and Lily stays sitting there for a moment or two, taking the tiniest sips of tea. A bloody mess. She hopes Rose is alright. She ought to text her, perhaps, but it might be weird. She and Rose have never been like that.

Instead she slides her phone out and finds Hugo's name.

 _met your new sister_ , she texts, then pauses to tap a fingernail against her teeth. She wants to make a joke of it but she makes herself stop and think first. And then she types, _yr dad's gonna stay w/ us i think if u want to come see him_

Hugo reads her message straight away, but there's no reply. Lily can understand that. So she sits there and finishes her tea for want of anything else to do, her nails scratching idly at the countertop.

A bloody mess indeed. 


	16. Chapter 16

The run-up to OWLs is utterly eclipsed by the best gossip wizarding Britain has had in years. It's all anybody can talk about. The afternoon after the History of Magic exam, the first one on the agenda, Lily and Euan are crossing the courtyard by the Charms department when a girl carrying a shitty magazine all but collides with Lily and then peels away, cackling, a picture of Ron's eyes visible through her grasping fingers.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” says Euan, with deep feeling, and puts a hand under Lily's elbow to steer her away before she can get violent. “If your man had waited a few months before scurrying off to quidditch land, you wouldn't have needed to do anything stupid to take the heat off him. This isn't even heat anymore, this is – fuck. Fucking fiendfyre.”

“Everyone loves a war hero fuck-up.” Lily pulls her elbow out of his grasp and ducks through a narrow stone archway into the grounds. “Come on, the girls are by the beech.”

She absolutely does not think about what Euan has said. It's a pleasant afternoon, the May heat soft and gentle, just warm enough to shuck their robes and carry them about over their arms. She's tanked the exam, that she is absolutely certain of. Probably last night's vodka was a bad idea, but she's found herself running with a lot of bad ideas lately. Anything that takes her mind off things – her family, her life, the funny way her heart keeps aching when she forgets not to let it – is preferable to being sober, no matter what's coming up the next day. She might actually fail the year. It's something she has thought to herself a few times now, and she's surprised that the idea of it is almost a relief. There's no way she's finishing Hogwarts without her girls. If it comes to that, she'll drop out, and fuck the whole concept of education.

“Oh,” says Euan suddenly as they round a curve of the lake. “My dad says please will we go to this talk tomorrow.”

Lily makes a face. “The plant one?”

“Yeah. Some famous botanist – that's a thing, apparently, being famous for liking plants too much, can you believe – is doing it. It's all about endangered magical herbs or something.”

A distant and mostly numb part of Lily perks up at this.

“Like, the Amazon?”

“The who?”

“The rainforest. How it's all being chopped down. Endangered.”

“I have no fucking clue, do I? I just said I'd see if people were up for a break from revision.”

“I'll go,” says Lily, with such eagerness that Euan turns a full ninety degrees to stare at her in astonishment. She has never been known to willingly participate in a singular extra-curricular. She just does bug-eyes back at him. “What? Lucy's weird friends told me about it once. The deforestation and shit. I want to know more about it.”

“Ah.” Euan's expression clears. “It comes back to fire and destruction. There's the Lily I know and love.”

“Fuck off,” Lily tells him, without heat. “Text your dad, tell him we'll be there.”

“We?”

“We're not fucking going alone. The others'll come if we tell them to.”

“Beth won't.”

“Fuck Beth,” says Lily, out of habit rather than emotion. The truth is, she and Beth are doing okay, these days. Lily thinks they might even sort of like each other at last. Beth might come to this plant talk, if Lily asks. It's a strange and sweet thought.

“Oi, shitdicks!” calls a new voice. Lily and Euan turn together, a double-headed creature. It has to be them the boy means, they're the only two anywhere close. He jogs closer, and Lily recognises him with a rush of irritation.

“Oh,” she says, and rearranges her face into a scowl. “Ackerly.”

“Oh,” he mimics back at her, baring his teeth. Lily had a crush on him for two shameful months in second year, bewitched by the chestnut swoop of his fringe and the soulful way he had of staring into her eyes. She learned the following year that he was badly shortsighted and too vain for glasses, so he looked at everyone that way. She also learnt that year – and has had it hammered home every year since – that he's an absolute bastard. He's got a massive zit coming up in the crease of nose. It's deeply satisfying to see.

“What do you want?” demands Euan, dismissive and cold. He's got one hand around the strap of his satchel, his posture suggesting Ackerly is already boring him, three words into the conversation. Lily feels a great surge of pride for him then, for his meanness and his beauty.

“Didn't mean to interrupt the romantic moment.” Ackerly lifts both hands as though surrendering and flips his fringe out of his face. God. Douchebag. “Just wondering if you'd seen Hugo? _My_ mate, who your mate keeps taking away.”

“Sounds like a you problem,” says Lily, snippy.

“I'm more than willing to make it an _us_ problem,” Ackerly promises, and ignores Lily's glare. “Seriously, we need him. Tell her to take her claws out of him.”

“Sophie Selwyn,” says Euan slowly, “claws?”

“You've all got claws, you crazy bitches.” Ackerly flips his hands up and down, like he hasn't just been offensive enough to make Lily's lungs burn. “You too, Longbottom.”

Euan catches at Lily's arm and holds it firmly. To Ackerly, he says, “Sounds like a bit of jealousy going on there, mate.”

“Jealousy?” Ackerly presses his lips together in a way that makes Lily certain Euan has nailed it. “Not likely.”

“Sure, sure.” Euan is still holding on to Lily, hidden in the crook of her elbow by the fall of her robe. The press of his fingers says, _this arsehole is not worth getting a detention over_. His mouth says, “Why wouldn't you be jealous, me hanging out with the best-looking girls in school, your mate dating one, when you can't even get a girl to look twice?”

From anyone else, this would be offensive. The possessiveness of it, the ownership it implies. But Euan is allowed to use their looks like a weapon, the very same way they use his. Possessive is the first adjective Lily thinks of when she thinks about her friends.

“Girls look twice,” says Ackerly, his tone abruptly sour. “You can trust me on that.”

“Your mum doesn't count, Ackerly,” says Lily, and grins her shittiest grin. He goes red, the way boys like him always do when you make a crack about their mother, and Lily pulls her wand out before he can take another step forward.

“You wouldn't hex me,” he tells her, but there's a waver in the bravado.

“You don't want to test that theory.” Euan's voice is clipped now, patience worn to a thread. “Go on, fuck off. We're done.”

“I'm not done,” says Ackerly, bridling. Lily lifts her wand a little higher and his eyes dart to it. She and Euan offer nothing further. Ackerly deliberates, then gives them the rudest gesture he can think of before he beats a retreat.

“God,” says Euan, watching him lope off around the lake, “if ever there was an argument for late-term abortions...”

Lily tucks her wand back into her bag and pulls her arm away from Euan. “How late is too late?”

“Sixteen years out of the womb would be about right, I reckon.” He's still watching the other boy go, brow wrinkled, looking tired and fed up.

“You're not wrong.”

“I'm never wrong. Come on, let's go find the others.”

When they slide into the group of their friends, Parks waves a magnanimous hand over at a dense patch of brambles stretching out of the Forbidden Forest and onto the sunny slopes of grass.

“Winnie and your cousin are behind there,” she says, lifting her voice so it carries, “being carnal.”

“Disgusting,” Lily replies primly, also lifting her voice, “shocking, actually. Right here in the Hogwarts grounds. Appalling.”

Euan slings his belongings down and drops, as though exhausted, into a hollow between two roots of the beech tree. Ellery offers him a ginger beer and he accepts it without raising his head.

“Where have you two been?” Yelena wants to know, squinting against the sun.

“Being carnal,” Lily tells her, and sits down next to her. Yell puts an arm out and she tucks herself in, sucking in a long and relaxing breath. Yell's perfume layers over the thick spring scent of the grass and the murky darkness of the lake, all of it bright and full of possibility. Lily can smell a hundred living things, the damp mulch of the forest and all the green growing up between the arching trunks. It makes her feel more awake than she has in months. She'd kill to spend every day out here, piled up amongst her friends, just the land and the sky and the plants to keep them company. She doesn't want to sit a single more exam or attend another lesson, not ever.

“Here.” Beth leans over and hands Lily a textbook, the juice from the peach she's eating dripping down her other hand. When Lily's taken the book Beth sits back and throws the peach pit into the lake, then licks the juice off, deliberately sensuous. Out of the corner of her eye, Lily sees Ellery roll hastily over onto his front, his ears bright red.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Lily gestures with the textbook. It's heavy and floppy, the pages covered in Beth's crabby handwriting.

“Test us, moron,” Beth says, but not unkindly. “It's Charms on Friday.”

“Like I can forget.” Lily sits up straighter and pushes her hair behind her ears. “Which bit?”

“Start with Shield Charms.” Yelena shuffles away so she can't see the textbook, settling herself down against the beech tree next to Euan. “Then Dlumann's Theory of Wand Angles.”

“I feel sick just hearing you say that,” Lily tells her, but flips the book to the right page and squints down at it anyway. It's mostly Greek to her, despite the days of enforced revision at home, but she dutifully reads out a few facts for her friends. Yelena knows every single answer, which would be nauseating if it wasn't bang on-brand for her. Only Clary contributes nothing at all, her hair spread out over the grass, the sun soaking into her fragile limbs.

Later, Yelena's got a text from her stupid boyfriend and disappeared off to find him. Ophelia and Beth go with her, making noises about a Divination revision session, and Clary shuffles after them in the hopes that somebody can push something useful into her brain without her having to make any effort.

Lily is only too delighted to hand the textbooks back and sink backwards to enjoy the waning afternoon. She piles backwards into Euan, letting her head flop onto his stomach hard enough to make him go _ooph_ , and then serenely ignoring as he immediately sets to braiding as much grass into her hair as he can reach without getting up. She kicks her shoes off and plops her feet into Parks' lap, wriggling her toes blissfully.

She's just starting to drowse when someone new looms into her line of sight.

“Oh, you,” says Lily, and tugs Winnie down into a hug. Her friend comes down laughing, bright and happy, her golden hair all over Lily's face and her body warm and indolent from the sunshine.

“We fell asleep,” she confesses, pressing a kiss to Lily's cheek and then pushing herself upright again, crossing her legs and tilting her head back to drink in more sun. “It's such a nice afternoon.”

“Sure you did,” says Euan, leaving off his braiding to knock knuckles with Hugo, who's come over with Winnie.

Parks concurs, “Yeah, that's what everyone does when they've got a girlfriend on hand and privacy. They sleep.”

Lily cackles. Hugo and Winnie both go brick red, but Hugo sits down and reaches out to touch her hand, and this tells Lily they are getting serious. Most boys that orbit in and out of their group at some point remain firmly on the outside, never welcome enough to sit down and join a conversation. Lily isn't sure she's ever had a serious conversation with Alveston Flint, Yelena's boyfriend, apart from advising him on what gifts to buy when asked. And they've been going out nearly a year.

“Not that it's any of your business,” Winnie tells Euan and Parks primly, sitting up and leaning her shoulder into Hugo's, “but we were actually asleep.”

Hugo meets Lily's eyes and slides his gaze away. Lily hasn't seen him since before the holidays. He didn't come to visit his father, not even once. She says nothing at all about his red mouth or the easy way he settles his hand over Winnie's thigh. It's a gesture that implies knowingness, familiarity, comfort. Sleeping is probably true. But that isn't all.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she gives Euan a prod to stop him talking. She's feeling generous, so she turns the conversation deftly, craning her head backwards to catch Ellery's eye and asking, “Is that rumour about your cousin true? He's setting up a line of magical sex toys?”

Everyone collapses with laughter. Ellery flushes and says, desperately, “He's only my _second_ cousin.”

“Own it, kiddo,” Parks advises, leaning in with a panther smile. “That's cool as hell. Would he give us some, do you think?”

“I'm not _asking_ ,” Ellery says, horrified, and his shoulders climb up to his ears. Even Hugo is laughing at him, his discomfort way funnier than the rumour itself. As Parks begins to pry about what, exactly, they can expect from this new endeavour, Lily settles herself back down. Beneath her head, Euan's breath rises and falls, faltering and jumping occasionally as Parks wrings more laughter out of him, his hands soft and purposeful in her hair.

Lily doesn't want anything like exams or lessons. She wants this, just this, forever.

It breaks up eventually, inevitably. As they're all getting up and shaking grass out of clothing, Lily reaches for Hugo. Her fingers catch in his sleeve and she says, “Yo, Hagrid asked if we'd drop by and see him.”

It's a lie, but Hugo has always been too prone to believe her. He presses a kiss to Winnie's cheek, both of them blushing anew at the hollering this produces, and then he falls into step beside Lily as the others wend their way back to the castle.

“So I lied,” Lily tells him the second they are out of sight, “sorry. We're not going to Hagrid's. I just wanted to ask what's up with you.”

Hugo stops dead. “You lied?”

“Oh, come on, it's not like I told you someone was dead. I didn't want to say in front of the others. I'm just – you're my cousin, dickhead. I'd like to know if you're alright.”

Hugo transfers his bag from one shoulder to the other. His expression is black.

“Why would I not be alright?”

“Don't make me thump you.”

He turns his face away. “I'm fine, Lily. Leave it.”

“Okay.” She walks on in silence for a few more paces. She can smell the grass Euan plaited into her hair. Hugo matches her pace again after a moment or two. He's got his jaw clenched so hard she can practically hear his teeth grinding together.

They're almost at the greenhouses by the time Hugo mutters, “Did he talk to you about it at all?”

“What, about Lo?”

His chin works for a second. “Yeah. And, like, leaving us.”

“Not to me. But I heard him talking to my dad. He didn't... there was no way he wanted to leave you. Not wanting to leave you is the whole reason he never said anything about Lo's mum in the first place.”

“All this time – all this time he's been lying.”

Lily bites her tongue and makes herself choose her next words carefully.

“I think he did the best he could. Can you imagine if the stupidest decision we ever made followed us around for decades? I'd be screwed.” And she would. The fact that she's not even sure what counts as her stupidest decision anymore says it all.

“But this wasn't just a stupid decision, Lily. This was... he has a _daughter_.”

“To be fair to him, he had no clue about Lo. And, like, he genuinely believed your mum wanted to divorce him. Like, I'm not saying he was in the right, or anything, but I can see where he was coming from.”

Hugo says nothing to that. The scowl doesn't look right on him. He's always been sunny Hugo, carefree Hugo, a bit slow with banter but always happy to be involved. Just to be alive. This miserable boy in front of her is not somebody she knows.

“Look.” Lily puts out a hand and drags him to a halt. “It's your decision how you deal with this, alright? But I think you should know he called your house every morning and every night asking to speak to you and Rose. I heard him _begging_. Whatever else he's done, he loves you so much. And I don't want you to lose him.”

Hugo says something so quietly, Lily can't hear it. When she says, “What?” he turns to her, his eyes terrible.

“I said, it isn't fair. I want to be allowed to be mad that he did this, but I can't. Because if he'd told the truth back then, I wouldn't be alive. So I should be grateful he lied. But instead I'm just so angry.”

He looks so much like Uncle Ron, his face all twisted up, that Lily steps forward and hugs him before she thinks twice about it. He's gangly and tall, and his uniform smells vaguely of damp. But he's familiar and sad and her cousin, and so she keeps her arms wrapped tight until he slowly starts to hug her back.

“You can be both,” she says into his sweater, and then pulls back. “You're allowed not to know which one you are. Be both of them.”

He turns away from her and scrubs an arm roughly over his face, pretending it's not to get rid of tears.

“Are you both sometimes?”

Lily tilts her head, dredges up a smile. “I'm angry and sad and fine all the time, basically. You get used to holding it all inside you.”

“I don't know if I can.”

She looks at him then, his hair so red against the trees, his eyes hollow and bloodshot. And she says, so sadly, “You can. You can get used to anything if you live with it long enough.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


The next day, they are five minutes late for the Herbology talk. Sliding in subtly is never going to be a possibility with a group like theirs – Parks is still complaining about being bullied into coming even as Yelena frantically shushes her and Lily pulls the door open – and so Lily is unsurprised to find all the heads in the small lecture hall turned their way, craning upwards. The benches march downwards like an amphitheatre to a tiny stage at the bottom, so it's hard to miss the door opening at the top of the room.

“I'm _so_ sorry,” she says, with deep sincerity. “We thought it was Hall 1, not 2.”

Neville is sat to one side of the stage, half in shadow. He's doing his disappointed eyebrows at Lily, but she's mostly immune to them by now. Her friends are shuffling furiously into seats behind her, making far too much noise, but she doesn't turn to look.

The famous botanist is _hot_. Lily was not expecting that, and she's not the only one delighted by the revelation, if Clary and Beth's whispers are anything to go by. He's golden-skinned, with black hair and tigerish dark eyes, cheekbones to die for, and the sort of mouth you can't help picturing against yours. He's also frowning up at them, the sunshine from the high windows illuminating the lines of his scowl and the faint shadow of stubble on his cheeks. Unfortunately for him, this just makes him hotter.

But he says nothing. This is perhaps because their arrival has swelled the numbers of attendees to this talk by about half again, since Lily managed to persuade not only her friends to come along but Morgana Malfoy and a bunch of _her_ friends by telling her the talk was going to be “about the Amazon or some shit like that”.

“Sorry,” Lily says again, and slides onto the end of the bench beside Winnie.

The botanist sighs, straightens his shoulders, and turns his attention back to the rest of the room.

“As I was saying,” he announces, his voice heavily accented – Spanish, Lily thinks, or something adjacent to it, “botany differs from Herbology in several ways. The easiest one to explain is that it's more about discovery and categorisation. Herbology looks at what a plant can do for us – how we can use it once we've uprooted it. But botany is about studying the plants before they are plucked or taken out of the ground. Finding where they grow and even to look at how they've evolved, how they are related to one another. But the two subjects tie in closely together, and most magical botanists – like me – train at Herbology schools. Have any of you heard of the Costa Rican Institute for Advanced Herbology?”

Lily glances around. A few hands have gone up, including most of Morgana's group. Minnie Stuart's is among them, her golden bangles tinkling as they slide down her forearm.

Winnie's elbow digs into Lily's side and Lily leans sideways automatically, presenting her ear as the botanist holds forth below.

“His name's Rafael,” Winnie informs her in a whisper, “Beth says. Rafael Ortero. She googled him. He's twenty-nine and he's single. From Colombia originally.”

“Interesting.” Lily leans her elbows on the desk in front of her. At first, she means only to listen long enough to come up with some question to ask him afterwards to get his attention. But then he starts talking about his latest research trip.

“Amongst all the death,” he's saying, turned halfway towards the slides projecting up onto the wall behind him, acres and acres of seared stumps and charred earth, “there it was. _Ignortus_. The phoenix flower.” The slide clicks onwards and Lily lets out a rapturous sigh without meaning to. The flower is tiny, delicate, all the colours of flames at night. Its stem and leaves are as black as the soot all around it. It's one of the most beautiful things she's ever seen.

The botanist's eyes are searching out the source of the sigh. When he finds Lily, his mouth quirks sideways just slightly. She's too entranced to do anything other than smile back, helpless in the face of her sudden and consuming love.

“We've been looking for it for years,” he continues, his gaze moving on, “any time we hear of a burn, we go. And we search and search. We had started to think it was extinct. But we found it. And where there's one, there's always more.”

The slides click on again. This time Lily jolts backwards, her astonishment thick enough to taste. The botanist's eyes are on her again, seeking out this reaction. It's a whole carpet of _ignortus_ , cupped in the dip of a burned-down clearing like a witch holding fire in the palms of her hands. Lily wants to climb inside the fuzzy picture on the projector-screen, lay down amidst that living fire and drown in it.

“There are legends in the local area that say the arrival of _ignortus_ means the forest is readying itself to fight back. It starts with this little fire-flower and then it builds to something dreadful. As a botanist, I have to tell you that this flower is just a flower. Its leaves and roots are of use to herbologists in many ways, which I'm sure your professor can tell you about. As far as we know, it isn't heralding doom. But as a wizard and a lover of the rainforest, well.” He puts a hand over his heart, gives the whole room a grin that cements his position as the hottest guest lecturer ever, no contest, and says, “As that, I have to hope _ignortus_ is the start of something that will save the forest, and the world with it.”

Lily's hand thrusts up into the air. She doesn't really mean it to, and she regrets it the second Neville half-rises, like he thinks she's about to be disruptive.

“Yes?” says the botanist, his eyebrows quirked. “The red-haired girl with the arm up?”

“Sorry,” says Lily, “I was just wondering, um, what comes after the flower? In the legends. Like, what's the next steps?”

“It's just a story,” the botanist says, but he's smiling conspiratorially. “I don't know all the details. But first it's _ignortus_ , which covers the damaged earth. Then there's a kind of creeping vine called _praefetum_ which will grow into the houses of the people who cause the damage and smother them at night. We've never seen any evidence that this vine exists, I should say. I've looked many times. What a discovery that would be. So at the same time as the vines spread, new trees grow and grow, too fast for anyone to cut down. The forest advances on the clear land, and the animals begin to come out into the open and attack. And last of all the rain comes down and drowns anyone who still wishes to hurt the forest.”

Whispers rattle around the small hall, travelling too fast to hear. Lily nods and slumps back down in her seat. The botanist gives her one last smile, then continues on with his lecture. She's still listening, fascinated, but a little part of her brain is turning the story over. This vine, she's thinking. What a discovery that would be. She imagines how it must have felt to kneel down beside that tiny flame-coloured flower and know that it was real, that all those years of chasing it had finally paid off. She wants that more than anything. The thrill and the relief. Plants in their own right she can take or leave, if she's being honest, but something about the whole thing takes her by the heart then and there. The dying rainforest and the beauty and the way Rafael Ortero curls his fists at the thought of it all.

She finds a biro in a pocket of her cloak, unfurls her palm on the desk in front of her and writes the name there. _Praefetum_. Then she closes her fingers around it and holds it tight.

She's going to go the Amazon one day and find that phoenix flower. And then she's going to walk right on into the still-living trees and she's going to find the killer vine too.


End file.
